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]L  I  B  R  ^  R  Y 

T  h  e  b  1  e^g  i  e  a  1    Seminary, 

PRINCETON,    N.    J. 


Cos 


BS    1430    .C4    1876 
Chambers,    Talbot  W.    1819- 
Shel        1896. 

noo     Th^   Psalter 


THE    VEDDER    LECTURES.    1876. 


THE    PSALTER 


A    WITNESS 


DIVINE    ORIGIN    OF    THE    BIBIE. 


BY 
V 
TALBOT   W.   CHAMBERS,   D.D., 

ONE    OF   THE    PASTORS    OF   THE    COLLEGIATE    DUICU    CHURCH    OF    NEW    YORK. 


NEW    YORK: 
ANSON    D.    F.    RANDOLPH    &    COMPANY. 

900    liROADWAY,  COR.  20th    ST, 
1876. 


Copyright,  1876,  by 
Anson  D.  F.  Randolph  &  Company. 


ROBERT      RUTTER, 

BINDER, 
84     BEEKMAN     SHEET,    N.     1. 


EDWARD    0.    JENKINS, 

PRINTER   AND   STEREOTYPER, 

JO   NOHIM   WILLIAM   ST.,    N.  r. 


PREFACE 


This  volume  consists  of  a  course  of  lectures  de- 
livered before  the  Theological  Seminary  and  Rut- 
gers College,  New  Brunswick,  N.  J.,  in  the  months 
of  April  and  May  last.  The  General  Synod  of  the 
Reformed  Dutch  Church  having  seen  fit  to  appoint 
the  author  to  be  Lecturer,  on  the  Vedder  Founda- 
tion, at  a  time  when  he  was  out  of  the  country,  and 
had  neither  expressed  nor  felt  any  wish  on  the  sub- 
ject, he  felt  constrained  to  accept  the  position,  not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  the  pecuniary  support  of 
the  Foundation  had  totally  failed.  The  general  sub- 
ject of  the  lectui-eship  is  stated  by  the  founder  to  be, 
"  The  present  aspects  of  Modern  Infidelity,  in- 
cluding its  cause  and  cure."  The  best  "  cure  "  of 
Infidelity  is  the  study  of  the  sacred  volume  which 
it  rejects.  With  a  view  to  promote  this,  the  author 
selected  a  theme  in  the  line  of  his  recent  studies, 
and  treated  it  to  the  best  of  his  ability.  He  is  not 
aware  that  the  argument  here  set  forth  has  ever  been 
handled  in  any  separate  volume.  If,  as  thus  pre- 
sented, it  shall  satisfy  any  wavering  minds,  or  if 
it  shall  prompt  abler  writers  to  a  fuller  and  more 
convincing  discussion  of  its  varied  aspects,  he 
will  be  abundantly  content. 

New  York,  September,  1876. 


CONTENTS. 


Page. 

LECTURE  I. 
Introductory  :  The  Nature  of  the  Psalter.     .      .      i 


LECTURE  II. 
The  Doctrine  of  God  in  the  Psalter 37 

LECTURE  III. 
The  Doctrine  of  Man  in  the  Psalter 73 

LECTURE  IV. 
The  Messiah  and  the  Future  Life 113 

LECTURE  V. 
The  Ethics  of  the  Psalter 149 


LECTURE    I. 

INTRODUCTORY.      THE     NATURE     AND     CHARACTER- 
ISTICS  OF   THE   PSALTER. 


LECTURE    I. 


INTRODUCTION. 

FORMS  OF  MODERN  INFIDELITY  —  AGREE  IN  REJECTING 
THE  SCRIPTURES— NEGATIVE  AND  POSITIVE  METHODS  OF 
DEFENCE — LATTER  PREFERRED — THE  PROPOSITION  STATED 
— THE  PSALTER  CHOSEN  BECAUSE  IT  BELONGS  TO  THE  OLD 
TESTAMENT — BECAUSE  SPONTANEOUS — BECAUSE  SPIRIT- 
UAL— NATURE  OF  THE  BOOK — ITS  CONTENTS — AUTHORS — 
DATES — CLASSIFICATION — THE  FIVE  BOOKS — MOURNFUL 
— JOYFUL  —  DIDACTIC  —  GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  —  I . 
POETICAL — PECULIARITIES  OF  FORM — 2.  LYRICAL — 3.  PAL- 
ESTINIAN— 4.  TRUE — 104TH  PSALM — i8TH  PSALM — THE 
ARGUMENT  a  fortiori. 

THE  forms  of  modern  infidelity  differ  widely 
among"  themselves,  sometimes  assailing 
single  characteristic  features  of  revealed  truth  ; 
at  others  laying  the  axe  at  the  rootof  all  super- 
natural religion.  The  hottest  controversy  of 
the  last  half  century  had  respect  to  the  person 
of  our  Lord.  The  answers  to  His  own  weighty 
and  searching  question,  "What  think  ye  of 
Christ  ?  "  have  declared  that  He  was  an  inten- 
tional deceiver,  or  a  victim  of  His  own  self-de- 


2  THE  PSALTER. 

ception  and  enthusiasm,  or  an  invention  of  His 
disciples  and  biographers,  or  a  final  result  of 
mythical  traditions  gradually  taking  shape  in  an 
unintelligent  age — all  these  being  simply  so 
many  different  ways  of  rejecting  His  own  state- 
ment that  He  is  the  Son  of  the  living  God,  and 
the  Saviour  of  the  world.  Another  form  of  the 
prevalent  skepticism  of  our  day  is  found  in  what 
the  apostle  once  spoke  of  as  ''  the  oppositions  of 
science  falsely  so  called."  This  is  not  content 
with  attacking  some  one  great  truth  or  fact  as- 
serted in  our  holy  religion,  such  as  the  fall  of 
man,  the  unity  of  the  race,  the  occurrence  of 
the  deluge,  or  the  resurrection  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  but  cuts  away  the  ground  from 
under  supernaturalism  by  insisting  upon  an  ab- 
solute and  unvarying  uniformity  in  the  sequences 
of  nature  from  the  very  beginning.  This  theory 
of  the  unchangeableness  of  natural  laws  rules 
out  revelation  entirely,  and  remands  us  back  to 
our  own  discoveries  in  the  search  for  moral  and 
religious  truth. 

Both  these  forms  of  error — the  denial  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  and  the  denial  of  the  possibility  of 
divine  intervention  in  the  processes  of  nature — 
agree  in  rejecting  the  Scripture  as  unworthy  of 
trust  because  it  states  what  is  not  true.     Hence 


INTRODUCTORY.  3 

the  pivot  of  the  whole  argument  Hes  in  the 
question,  Is  there  a  revelation  come  from 
God?  or  in  other  words,  Is  the  Bible  such  a 
revelation  ?  For  however  loosely  men  may 
talk  of  the  different  Scriptures  of  the  ancient 
races  as  alike  in  character  and  authority,  no  se- 
rious person  will  undertake  to  set  up  any  other 
professedly  holy  or  divine  book  in  competition 
with  the  lively  oracles  of  God.  The  Vedas  of 
the  Brahmans,  the  Tripitaka  of  the  Buddhists, 
the  Avestan  of  the  Parsis,  the  Koran  of  the 
Mohammedans  claim  to  be  divine,  and  are  so 
regarded  by  their  respective  followers.  But 
w^ho  now  thinks  of  admittino-  the  claim?  These 
writings  are  all  truly  remarkable.  They  con- 
tain many  striking  thoughts,  brilliant  pictures, 
and  glorious  visions.  Detached  statements  are 
found  here  and  there  which  challenge  universal 
admiration.  But  they  lack  not  only  in  part,  but 
altogether,  the  distinctive  evidence  of  a  revela- 
tion. They  offer  no  specifications  of  time  and 
place  and  circumstances  to  which  the  ordinary 
historical  tests  can  be  applied.  Their  warmest 
advocates  claim  for  them  no  external  evidences 
whatever.  And  when  subjectively  considered, 
these  writings  as  a  whole  are  found  to  be  pecul- 
iarly local  and  national,  not  even  pretending  to 


THE  PSALTER. 


that   universality  of    meaning   and    application 
which  must  belonof  to  a  communication  bv  God 


to  man. 


If  anywhere  on  earth  there  is  an  authen- 
tic message  from  heaven,  it  must  be  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  New.  The  argument  to 
show  that  it  is  there  may  be  conducted  in  two 
ways.  One,  the  negative,  takes  up  in  detail 
the  various  objections  which  have  been  urged, 
and  shows  their  unsoundness.  This  method 
has  been  pursued  from  the  beginning  in  every 
age  of  the  Church,  indeed  so  extensively  as  to 
have  given  its  name  to  the  whole  department 
of  Christian  evidences,  which  is  now  commonly 
known  as  Apologetics.  The  successful  prosecu- 
tion of  this  work  demands  time  and  space 
largely,  l^ake,  for  example,  the  difficulties  based 
on  the  discoveries  of  physical  science.  Much 
patience  and  learning  are  required  to  follow 
scientists  through  their  elaborate  investigation 
and  argumentation,  and  carefully  discriminate 
fact  from  theory,  separating  what  is  proved 
from  what  is  inferred  or  conjectured.  And 
when  this  is  successfully  done,  there  is  often 
needed  a  special  training  in  the  hearer  or  reader 
to  fit  him  to  see  the  point  of  the  objection  or 
the    force    of  the   reply.     And,  besides,  when 


INTRODUCTORY. 


5 


one  class  of  difficulties  has  been  removed,  all 
the  others  resting  upon  different  grounds  still 
remain  to  be  taken  up  in  turn  and  disproved. 

The  other  method,  therefore,  the  positive, 
that  which  considers  and  sets  forth  the  Q-i'ounds 
upon  which  our  faith  in  the  Bible  as  th.e  Word 
of  God  rests,  is  both  more  complete  and  more 
satisfactory.  It  is  true  that  the  lines  of  argu- 
ment are  many,  for  it  could  not  be  otherwise  in 
a  book  which  is  so  large  and  varied  in  its  con- 
tents, its  history,  and  its  relations  to  men.  But 
each  line  of  argument,  if  satisfactorily  main- 
tained, is  not  only  good  for  itself,  but  concludes 
in  favor  of  the  whole.  For  example,  if  the 
miraculous  attestations  are  made  out  to  be  what 
they  profess,  and  God  has  actually  set  His  seal 
to  the  written  word,  then  the  Bible  is  true,  and 
all  the  other  evidences,  such  as  those  drawn 
from  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  from  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Bible,  from  its  purity  and  har- 
mony, its  truth  to  human  nature,  its  benign  in- 
fluence upon  the  individual,  the  family,  and  the 
State,  the  rapid  propagation  of  its  faith,  and 
the  like,  are  also  true,  and  give  the  argument 
cumulative  force.  And  so  with  any  one  of 
these  compared  with  the  rest.  Truth  is  the 
same    always    and   everywhere.     A   revelation 


6  THE  PSALTER. 

which  is  true  historically  must  be  also  true  on 
all  other  g-rounds,  theoretical  or  practical.  Mil- 
ton, in  his  Liberty  of  Unlicensed  Printing, 
mentions  the  Egyptian  fable  that  "  Typhon  with 
his  conspirators  took  the  virgin  Truth,  hewed 
her  lovely  form  into  a  thousand  pieces  and  scat- 
tered them  to  the  four  winds,"  from  which  time 
her  sad  friends  have  gone  up  and  down  in  care- 
ful search,  "gathering  up  limb  by  limb  still  as 
they  could  find  them."  But  the  dissevered 
pieces  must  needs  make  one  whole,  and  each  as 
it  turned  up  was  a  pledge  of  the  existence  of 
the  rest.  And  so  each  successful  arofument  for 
the  supreme  truth  interlocks  with  all  the  others 
and  carries  them  along  with  it.  As  Hooker 
says,  "  Truth,  of  what  kind  soever,  is  by  no  kind 
of  truth  gainsaid." 

If  a  choice  is  to  be  made  among  the  various 
methods  of  sustaining  the  faith,  I  quite  agree 
with  the  sentiment  expressed  in  the  previous 
course  of  lectures  on  this  foundation  by  Dr. 
Tayler  Lewis:  "The  Bible  itself  must  be 
brought  out  as  the  best  defence  against  infidel- 
ity— the  Bible  itself,  not  only  as  the  great 
standing  miracle  of  history,  but  as  containing  un- 
earthly ideas  for  which  no  philosophy,  no  theory 
of  development  can  ever  account Other 


IN  TROD  UC  TOR  V.  7 

defences  are  indeed  important,  but  without  this 
they  are  shorn  of  the  great  strength  which  can 
alone  make  them  available  to  the  pulling  down 
of  stroRcdiolds,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  truth's 
unwearied  foes."  A  further  reason  for  taking- 
this  course  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  most  in- 
teresting branch  of  Apologetics  to  ordinary 
readers,  and  especially  to  devout  Christians,  is 
that  which  treats  of  the  Scripture's  own  claims 
for  what  it  is,  in  and  of  itself  This  is  a  port- 
able manual  of  the  evidences  always  at  hand, 
and  always  available  for  an  answer  to  them  that 
ask  a  reason  of  the  hope  that  is  in  us.  But  the 
whole  Bible,  or  even  one  Testament,  is  far  too 
larofe  for  a  course  of  lectures  like  this.  I  have 
chosen,  therefore,  to  take  up  a  single  book,  one 
that  is  complete  in  itself,  and  yet  stands  in  vital 
relation  to  all  the  rest,  viz.:  the  Psalms.  The 
proposition  is  that  these  Psalms  as  a  whole, 
when  viewed  as  to  their  subjects,  aims,  spirit, 
and  teaching,  especially  in  comparison  with  the 
corresponding  literature  of  all  other  forms  of 
reliirion,  can  be  accounted  for  on  no  other  ofround 
than  a  divine  origin. 

This  theme  is  selected  because,  first,  it  be- 
longs to  the  Old  Testament,  w^hich  is  always 
more  sharply  assailed  than  the  New,  and  which, 


8  ■     ■  THE  PSAL  TER. 

as  the  introductory  portion  of  a  gradual  revela- 
tion, for  that  very  reason  stands  the  more  open 
to  hostile  criticism.  Hence  it  follows  that  if 
a  constituent  part  of  that  which  is  professedly 
an  incomplete  and  preparatory  disclosure  of  the 
divine  will  can  be  substantiated  on  independent 
grounds,  much  more  may  that  which  belongs  to 
the  full  and  final  statement  of  God's  Word. 
The  timidity  of  some  Christian  writers  on  this 
point  is  unaccountable.  They  seem  to  speak 
of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  as  if  they  were  a  bur- 
den to  carry.  How  much  nobler  and  truer  is 
the  language  of  the  accomplished  and  genial 
critic,  Herder,  in  the  preface  to  his  Geist  der 
Ebrdische  Poesie :  "The  basis  of  theology  is 
the  Bible,  and  that  of  the  New  Testament  is 
the  Old.  It  is  impossible  to  understand  the 
former  aright  without  a  previous  understanding 
of  the  latter ;  for  Christianity  proceeded  from 
Judaism,  and  the  genius  of  the  language  is  in 
both  books  the  same.  And  this  eenius  of  the 
language  we  can  nowhere  study  better — that  is, 
with  more  truth,  comprehensiveness,  and  satis- 
faction— than  in  its  poetry,  and,  indeed,  as  far  as 
possible,  in  its  most  ancient  poetry.  It  pro- 
duces a  false  impression  and  misleads  the  young 
theologian  to  commend  to  him  the  New  Testa- 


INTRODUCTORY.  g 

ment  to  the  exclusion  of  the  Old.  Without 
this  that  can  never  be  understood  in  a  satis- 
factory manner.  In  the  Old  Testament  we 
find  as  an  aid  to  this  a  rich  interchange  of  his- 
tory, of  figurative  representation,  of  characters, 
and  of  scenery ;  and  we  see  in  it  the  many-col- 
ored dawn,  the  beautiful  going  forth  of  the  sun 
in  his  milder  radiance.  In  the  New  Testament 
it  stands  in  the  highest  heavens  and  in  merid- 
ian splendor,  and  every  one  knows  which  period 
of  the  day  to  the  natural  eye  imparts  most  life 
and  strencrth."* 

The  spontaneous  character  of  the  Psalms 
gives  a  further  reason  for  selecting  them.  They 
are  thus  sharply  defined  and  discriminated  from 
the  most  of  the  other  writings  with  which  they 
are  connected.  Every  reader  at  once  recog- 
nizes the  difference  between  a  chapter  of  moral 
or  ceremonial  precepts,  or  a  historical  narrative 
or  a  logical  argument,  and  the  outburst  of  pas- 
sion or  sentiment  which  gives  character  to  a 
poetical  utterance,  especially  when  it  takes  the 
form  of  a  lyric.  In  the  latter  there  is  a  buoy- 
ancy of  life,  a  freshness  of  feeling  not  seen 
elsewhere.    The  singer  has  his  tongue  unloosed 


♦Marsh's  Translation,  I.,  22. 
1* 


lO 


THE  r SALTER. 


from  every  bond,  and  under  some  overmaster- 
ing impulse  pours  out  what  he  sees  and  feels. 
He  pursues  no  course  of  consecutive  reasoning, 
draws  no  nice  distinctions,  elaborates  no  specu- 
lative theme,  but  simply  utters,  in  such  phrase 
as  the  place  and  the  time  suggest,  that  which 
deeply  stirs  his  own  heart.  Consequently  all 
is  free,  unstudied,  natural.  Even  where  the 
conceptions  are  most  sublime,  or  the  images 
most  striking,  or  the  words  most  felicitous,  art 
lingers  behind  nature,  and  we  feel  ourselves  in 
the  presence  of  a  soul  moved  to  its  depths.  If, 
now,  it  can  be  shown  that  in  such  passionate 
utterances   as  these  which  arouse  and  express 

All  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  delights, 
Whatever  slirs  this  mortal  frame, 

that  even  amid  the  highest  flights  of  imagina- 
tion, and  a  very  whirlwind  of  contending  feelings, 
there  is  yet  an  element  truly  divine  that  domi- 
nates the  whole  and  separates  it  by  an  impassa- 
ble gulf  from  all  other  poetry,  ancient  or  modern, 
the  conclusion  holds  good  not  only  for  the 
Psalter,  but  for  the  entire  volume  of  which  it  is 
an  integral  part. 

Another  attractive   feature  of  the  Psalms  for 
the  present  purpose  is  their  spiritual  character. 


nVTKOD  UCTOR  Y.  1 1 

They  are  wonderful  not  only  for  their  antiquity, 
their  variety,  their  simplicity,  their  frequent  sub- 
limity, pathos,  tenderness,  and  fire,  but  also  for 
a  peculiar  development  of  thought  and  feeling. 
They  acquaint  us  with  the  interior  life  of  the 
Old  Testament  saints  ;  they  disclose  to  us  their 
feelings  in  the  most  sacred  and  hallowed  mo- 
ments of  their  lives  ;  they  give  us  a  deep  insight 
into  the  more  hidden  wonders  of  a  holy  religion, 
showing  how  our  common  humanity  is  affected 
under  the  experimental  application  of  a  true  and 
self-consistent  theology.  Other  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament  furnish  the  didactic  statements 
of  religious  truth,  its  precepts  or  its  promises,  or 
its  illustration  in  history  or  biography ;  but  in 
the  Psalter  we  come  close  to  the  beatine  heart 
of  the  believer  ;  we  see  the  actings  of  the  whole 
moral  nature  in  the  presence  of  vivid,  spiritual 
realities  ;  we  trace  the  working  of  faith,  and 
hope,  and  gratitude,  or  of  shame,  and  fear,  and 
penitence  ;  we  follow  the  entire  course  of  spir- 
itual vicissitudes  in  the  dealings  of  the  individual 
soul  with  its  Maker  and  Portion  ;  in  short,  there 
is  a  perfect  mirror  of  the  devout  man's  inward 
life.  Hence  it  is  that  so  often  the  Psalms  and 
the  New  Testament  arc  bound  up  in  the  same 
volume,  and  lie  on  the  table  or  the  pillow  of 


12  THE  PSALTER. 

many  an  humble  Christian  for  whom  the  poetic 
power,  the  lyric  fire,  the  graceful  allusions,  and 
the  vivid  imagery  have  little  or  no  charm,  but 
who  sees  in  the  picture  of  soul  conflicts,  of  lowly 
abasement,  of  penitential  confession,  of  rapt 
adoration,  of  clinging  faith  and  sacred  joy,  the 
very  stimulus  and  comfort  his  own  situation 
requires.  Doctrine  and  duty  are  translated 
before  his  eyes  into  experience,  and  the  tran- 
script goes  straight  to  his  heart.  Utterances 
made  thousands  of  years  ago  in  the  Cave  of 
Adullam  or  in  the  courts  of  the  temple,  are  as 
fresh  and  life-like  to  his  apprehension  as  if  they 
originated  but  yesterday  in  his  own  land.  If 
this  be  the  fact — and  how  can  it  for  an  instant 
be  doubted  ? — in  dealing  with  the  Psalter  we 
are  not  at  work  upon  the  outposts,  but  in  the 
citadel  of  Revelation,  at  close  quarters  with  the 
very  secret  of  its  strength.  Its  acknowledged 
excellence  in  this  respect,  its  fidelity  to  the  in- 
tuitive instincts  of  enlightened  souls,  unmarred 
by  the  excesses  of  superstition  or  enthusiasm, 
require  us  to  seek  its  origin  higher  than  on  the 
plane  of  this  earth. 

What,  then,  is  the  Psalter?     In  the  form  in 
which  it  stands  in  our  Bibles — a  form  which  can 


IN  TROD  UC  TOR  V.  1 3 

be  conclusively  traced  back  to  the  middle  of  the 
third  century  before  Christ — it  is  a  collection  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  lyrics,  marked  by  very 
great  differences  among  themselves,  yet  on  the 
other  hand  united  by  certain  features  which  they 
have  in  common.  The  differences  are  patent 
on  even  a  superficial  inspection.  For  example, 
in  the  matter  of  length  they  vary  from  one  of 
two  sentences  (cxvii.)  to  one  of  a  hundred  and 
seventy-six  (cxix.) ;  and  between  these  two 
extremes  there  is  a  constant  diversity,  denoting 
the  absence  of  any  prescribed  pattern.  The 
authors,  too,  are  various.  Although  the  book 
is  commonly  called  the  Psalms  of  David,  yet  he 
is  the  recognized  author  of  only  seventy-three, 
a  little  less  than  one-half  of  the  whole.  Still 
the  title  is  justly  given,  since  he  was  probably 
the  composer  of  others,  and  the  entire  book 
evidently  took  its  characteristic  features  and 
tone  from  him.  More  than  fifty  psalms  are 
anonymous,  while  twelve  are  assigned  to  Asaph, 
eleven  to  the  sons  of  Korah,  two  to  Solomon, 
one  to  Ethan,  and  one  to  Moses,  the  man  of 
God.  The  oldest  known  division  of  the  collec- 
tion is  into  Five  Books,  terminating  respectively 
with  Pss.  xli.,  Ixxii.,  Ixxxix.,  cvi.,  and  cl.  These 
books  are    separated   and    distinguished    from 


14 


THE  r SALTER. 


each  other  by  the  doxologies  with  which  they 
severally  conclude,  by  the  greater  or  less  use  of 
one  or  other  of  the  divine  names,  and  by  a 
general  progress  from  doctrine  and  experience 
in  the  First,  through  historical  and  didactic 
utterances  in  the  Second  and  Third,  to  a  domi- 
nant tone  of  praise  and  triumph  in  the  Fourth 
and  Fifth.  This  ancient  division  suo-orests  what 
on  other  grounds  seems  a  rational  hypothesis, 
that  the  collection  as  we  have  it  is  one  that  was 
gradually  made  through  a  long  course  of  time  — 
each  book  markinof  a  new  accretion  to  the 
original  stock.  For  this  reason  it  is  not  sur- 
prising to  find  the  composition  of  some  lyrics 
separated  by  a  considerable  interval  from  that 
of  others.  The  oldest  is  the  one  (xc.)  ascribed 
to  Moses — an  ascription  which,  although  often 
and  severely  attacked,  can  yet  be  successfully 
vindicated.  Others  are  by  common  consent 
attributed  to  the  period  of  the  Exile  or  the 
Restoration.  Some  writers  have  assigned  cer- 
tain Psalms  to  the  Maccabees — a  view  in  which 
Calvin  so  far  shared  as  to  consider  that  Pss.  xliv., 
Ix.,  Ixxiv.,  and  Ixxix.  were  composed  during  the 
persecuting  reign  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes.  But 
it  is  not  necessary  to  defend  at  length  the 
traditional   view  on   this  point,  since    even    so 


IN  TROD  UC  TOR  V.  1 5 

independent  a  thinker  as  Ewald,  whose  scholar- 
ship and  insight  no  one  disputes,  scouts  the 
Maccabean  authorship  as  destitute  of  any  ra- 
tional grounds.  Taking,  then,  the  age  of  Mal- 
achi  as  the  time  when  the  collection  was  com- 
pleted, we  have  a  body  of  literature  whose 
beginning  is  separated  from  its  end  by  a  thou- 
sand years — a  space  more  than  half  as  long 
again  as  that  between  Homer  and  Anacreon, 
or  between  Chaucer  and  Tennyson. 

But  great  as  is  the  diversity  of  authorship 
and  date,  equally  great  is  that  of  tone  and  spirit. 
All  are  by  no  means  pitched  in  the  same  key. 
Avoiding  minute  details,  I  may  specify  three 
general  divisions  as  indicating  the  variety  of 
feeling  and  utterance.  One  is  the  Pathetic,  or 
Mournful.  A  tradition  as  old  as  Origen  gives 
to  seven  (vi.,  xxxii.,  xxxvi.,  li.,  cii.,  cxxx.,  cxliii.) 
the  title  of  Penitential  Psalms,  but  these  are  far 
from  exhausting  the  list  of  such  as  may  fairly 
be  thus  described.  Indeed  it  is  remarkable 
how  amply  the  literature  of  sorrow  is  repre- 
sented in  this  book.  No  sufferer  of  any  period, 
whether  from  age  or  infirmity,\or  bereavement, 
or  desertion,  or  treachery,  or  persecution,  or 
exile,  or  any  form  of  spiritual  perplexity  or 
darkness,  fails  to  find  an  appropriate   expres- 


1 6  THE  PSALTER. 

sion  of  his  feelings.  So  vivid  are  these  utter- 
ances of  the  soul  that  no  one  can  mistake  them 
for  flights  of  fancy.  They  are,  they  must  be, 
the  records  of  a  real  experience.  In  strong 
contrast  with  the  "  hearse-like  airs,"  as  Bacon 
calls  them,  are  the  Songs  of  Praise  and  Joy. 
The  themes  here  are  very  various  ;  a  recent 
deliverance  from  danger,  a  victory  over  national 
foes,  the  downfall  of  a  persecuting  tyrant,  the 
glory  of  God  expressed  in  His  works,  the  same 
glory  shining  out  in  providential  interpositions, 
the  perfections  of  the  Most  High,  and  especially 
the  displays  of  His  loving-kindness.  Here, 
again,  is  a  fitting  vehicle  for  the  expression 
of  similar  feelings  in  all  ages  and  countries. 
Thanksgiving  and  praise  on  whatever  ground 
have  a  pattern  in  these  old  Hebrew  lyrics, 
which  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired.  But  what 
is  truly  remarkable,  a  feature  which  occurs  no- 
where else  that  I  know,  sometimes  both  styles 
are  united  in  the  same  composition.  The  writer 
begins  in  the  deepest  distress,  a  wail  de  proficn- 
dis,  but  gradually,  sometimes  suddenly,  passes 
into  a  strain  exactly  opposite  ;  and  the  groans 
and  complaints  of  the  first  part  are  drowned  in 
the  triumphant  hallelujahs  of  the  second  (vi., 
xiii.,  xxxi.,  etc.)     But  besides  these  impassioned 


IN  TROD  UCTOR  Y.  1 7 

Utterances,  there  is  a  class  of  didactic  or  even 
gnomic  compositions  which  are  scarcely  less  in- 
teresting or  useful.  These  for  the  most  part 
set  forth  the  character  of  the  good  man  and  the 
bad,  and  the  consequent  happiness  or  misery 
of  their  respective  conditions,  or  the  varied  ex- 
cellencies of  the  divine  law,  or  the  vanity  of 
human  pursuits,  or  the  duties  of  particular 
classes  of  men.  Modern  precision  has  objected 
to  some  of  these  as  unsuited  for  lyrical  pur- 
poses, but  they  were  certainly  sung  or  cantil- 
lated  in  the  ancient  Church,  and  the  majority  of 
the  Christian  Church  in  all  ages,  has  found  its 
account  in  cherishing  didactic  compositions  as 
an  integral  part  of  the  service  of  song  in  the 
house  of  the  Lord. 

But  while  the  Psalms  have  the  differences 
which  have  been  mentioned,  and  bear  such 
strong  marks  of  individuality,  there  are  several 
features  which  belong  to  them  in  common,  and 
give  to  them  a  unity  of  character,  which  quite 
forbids  the  thought  that  they  are  scattered  and 
random  utterances  accidentally  or  capriciously 
gathered  into  a  book. 

First,  they  are  poetical,  all  of  them.  Of 
course  not  in  the   sense  in  which  we  apply  that 


1 8  THE  PSALTER. 

term  to  the  verse  of  the  ancient  classics,  or  to 
that  of  any  modern  literature.  The  Hebrews 
knew  nothing  of  rhythm  or  rhyme.  A  fearful 
amount  of  ingenuity  and  research  has  been 
wasted  in  vain  endeavors  to  find  some  regular 
measures  corresponding  to  the  metres  of  the 
western  nations.  Nor  does  there  seem  any 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  result  would  be  dif- 
ferent, did  we  know  (as  confessedly  we  do 
not)  the  exact  method  of  the  ancient  pronunci- 
ation of  the  language.  Metres  have  not  been 
discovered  because  they  did  not  exist.  Did  they 
exist,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  penetration 
which  has  unlocked  the  secrets  of  Hieroglyph- 
ic, Cypriote,  and  Cuneiform  inscriptions  would 
long  since  have  shown  the  fact  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  all.  As  the  case  stands,  there  is  no 
more  measured  verse  in  the  Hebrew  Psalter 
than  there  is  in  the  authorized  version  of  the 
same.  And  we  may  well  rejoice  that  it  is  so. 
Were  it  otherwise,  how  greatly  would  the  diffi- 
culties of  translation  into  other  tongues  be  mul- 
tiplied !  It  is  hard  enough  to  convey  the  sense 
of  one  language  justly  and  gracefully  into  an- 
other, but  the  task  is  far  sorer  when  form  as 
well  as  substance  has  to  be  reproduced.  Any 
eood  Greek  scholar  can  qrive  the  full  and  exact 


INTRODUCTORY. 


19 


meaning-  of  a  ringing  chorus  of  yEschylus  or 
Sophocles,  but  not  all  combined  can  reproduce 
in  English  the  music  of  the  harmonious  num- 
bers employed  by  the  original  poet.  Our  lit- 
erature abounds  in  imitations,  but  they  are  im- 
itations, and  as  much  like  the  original  as  a  wax 
flower  is  to  what  it  represents — as  much,  but  no 
more.  There  may  be  the  perfection  of  mechan- 
ism, but  there  is  no  life.  On  the  contrary,  the 
poetical  form  of  the  Psalms  can  be  perfect- 
ly well  represented  in  almost  an)^  language. 
There  is  a  versified  structure,  but  the  versifica- 
tion does  not  depend  upon  sounds  or  words  or 
accents,  but  upon  things.  Instead  of  being  ver- 
bal, it  is  real.  The  relation  between  the  success- 
ive lines  of  a  Hebrew  poem  does  not  lie  in  the 
harmony  of  the  words,  but  in  the  harmony  of 
the  ideas.  Every  poetical  utterance  of  every 
kind,  long  or  short,  literal  or  figurative,  ani- 
mated or  calm,  is  made  up  of  a  series  of  bal- 
anced sentences  or  propositions,  each  of  which 
corresponds  in  some  way  to  the  rest.  This 
feature,  called  Parallelism  by  Lowth,  who, 
though  he  by  no  means  was  its  discoverer,  yet 
was  its  most  skilful  and  successful  expounder, 
is  the  key  to  the  entire  structure.  One  clause 
leads  us  always  to  expect  another,  which  shall 


20  THE  r SALTER. 

cither  repeat  the  sentiment  of  the  first,  or  set 
forth  its  opposite,  or  give  a  variation  of  the 
theme.  The  ParalleHsms  have  been  classified 
and  named  by  various  writers,  but  minutiae  on 
this  point  are  of  no  value.  The  one  essential 
thing  is  that  the  poetical  form  lies  in  the  rela- 
tion of  the  clauses  or  sentences,  and  necessarily 
carries  with  it  the  thought.  Hence  the  truth  of 
the  remark  so  often  made  as  to  its  unchange- 
able character  in  all  versions,  however  rudely 
made.  As  Bishop  Jebb  says,  "  Hebrew  poetry 
is  universal  poetry,  the  poetry  of  all  languages 
and  of  all  peoples  ;  the  collocation  of  words  is 
primarily  directed  so  as  to  secure  the  best  pos- 
sible announcement  and  discrimination  of  the 
sense.  Let,  then,  only  a  translator  be  literal,  and 
so  far  as  the  genius  of  the  language  will  permit, 
let  him  observe  the  original  order  of  the  words, 
and  he  will  infallibly  put  the  reader  in  possession 
of  all,  or  nearly  all,  that  the  Hebrew  text  can 
give  to  the  best  Hebrew  scholar  of  the  present 
day."  Of  course  there  are  linguistic  peculiarities 
which  can  not  be  reproduced  in  a  modern  tongue 
— such  as  the  use  of  archaic  terms,  the  introduc- 
tion of  peculiar  grammatical  forms  and  termina- 
tions, and,  at  times,  the  employment  of  words, 
which  suggest  at  once  to  a  vernacular  reader 


]XTROD  UCTOR  Y.  2  I 

what  could  not  be  conveyed  to  another  except 
by  a  tedious  periphrasis — as,  for  example,  in 
Isaiah  Ix.  i,  we  read,  "  The  glory  of  the  Lord 
is  risen  upon  thee."  The  version  is  faithful, 
yet  it  does  not  convey  to  the  English  reader 
what  the  original  does  to  the  Hebrew,  viz., 
that  this  glory  would  rise  upon  Zion  with  the 
same  majesty  and  beauty  with  which  the  sun 
rises  over  the  earth.  But  apart  from  these  ex- 
ceptions, every  literal  version  of  Hebrew  poetry 
in  any  tongue,  gives  to  the  reader  a  full  and 
faithful  impression  of  its  beauty,  sublimity,  and 
force,  whereas  a  bald  prosaic  rendering  of  the 
Iliad  or  of  the  Divina  Commedia,  would  make 
one  wonder  where  the  far-famed  glory  of  the 
original  had  gone. 

(2).  But  the  Psalms  are  not  only  Poetical, 
but  also,  as  has  been  said,  belong  to  that  species 
of  poetry  which  is  called  Lyrical.  The  Hebrews 
had  no  epic  and  no  drama.  The  argument  of 
Ewald  {Die  Dichter  des  A.  B.,  I.  69,  seq.)  to 
show  the  existence  of  a  theatre  in  the  days  of 
David  and  Solomon,  is  a  conspicuous  failure, 
which  not  even  his  profound  insight  and  vast 
learning  could  avoid.  To  call  Job  a  tragedy  and 
Canticles  a  comedy,  simply  shocks  common 
sense.     But  the  dramatic  element,  so  far  as  con- 


22  THE  PSALTER. 

ccrns  representation  of  character,  and  dialogue, 
and  refrain,  and  chorus,  is  not  wanting  even  in  the 
shorter  utterances  of  the  Hebrew  muse,  because 
they  are  for  the  most  part  pure  lyrics,  unques- 
tionably the  oldest  form  of  poetry  and  the  fruit- 
ful germ  of  all  others.  It  is  as  Ewald  says, 
"  The  daughter  of  the  moment,  of  swiftly  rising, 
powerful  feelings,  of  deep,  stirring,  and  fiery 
emotions  of  the  soul  by  which  the  poet  is  alto- 
gether carried  away."  It  is  a  direct  outpouring 
of  the  heart,  the  result  of  an  impulse  springing 
from  the  very  foundations  of  our  nature,  to 
express  in  words  what  powerfully  stirs  within. 
But  these  words  must  in  form  correspond  with 
that  which  they  express,  and  hence  they  take 
the  peculiar  shape  which  we  call  poetic.  The 
singer  sings,  in  the  first  instance  at  least,  to 
satisfy  this  inward  pressure,  and  has  no  thought 
or  aim  beyond  his  immediate  subject.  Hence 
while  his  words  take  form,  it  is  always  form  of 
the  simplest  kind,  parallel  utterances,  strophes, 
refrains,  occasional  assonances,  and  the  like, 
never  rhymes  or  measured  syllables.  The  de- 
velopment of  the  thought  is  varied  by  striking 
images  of  all  kinds,  by  numerous  personifica- 
tions of  inanimate  nature,  by  the  introduction 
of  changing   scenes   and   persons,   unexpected 


INTRODUCTORY. 


23 


applications,  sharp  transitions,  and  the  boldest 
anthropomorphic  representations  of  God  and 
divine  things.  Yet  all  bears  the  unmistakable 
stamp  of  freshness  and  originality.  Song  never 
deals  with  the  abstract,  but  with  the  concrete. 
It  is  personal  and  emotional.  It  starts  from  the 
feelings,  and  it  speaks  to  the  feelings.  It  is 
therefore  intensely  human.  That  element  not 
only  lies  upon  the  surface,  but  pervades  warp 
and  woof  of  the  whole.  Hence  always  the 
lyrics  of  a  people  or  a  period  are  the  truest 
expression  of  its  character.  When  Lord  Ma- 
caulay  was  seeking  the  materials  for  his  incom- 
parable history,  he  made  diligent  search  for 
every  popular  ballad,  for  every  dingy  half-sheet, 
as  that  which  gave  the  very  form  and  spirit  of 
the  time.  And  he  was  right.  Other  forms  of 
utterance  may  be  borrowed  or  imitated,  but 
song  wells  up  from  the  heart,  and  indicates 
unerringly  what  it  is  that  stirs  the  interior 
recesses  of  the  soul.  A  genuine  singer  sings 
not  because  he  wants  to  sing,  but  because  he 
must.  The  passion  swelling  within  demands 
expression  and  will  not  be  denied. 

(3).  Accordingly  the  Psalter  is  eminently 
Hebraistic,  or  rather  Palestinian,  bearing  in  all 
its  parts  the  evidence  of  its  origin.     None  of  its 


24  THE  PSALTER. 

characteristic  features  came  from  without.   Even 
cultivated  Egypt,  where  the  seed  of  Abraham 
accompHshed  the  slow  transition  from  a  family 
to  a  nation,  exerted  no  influence  here.    Learned 
men    have    often    tried    to   deduce  the  Mosaic 
ritual  and  cultus   from  Egyptian  memories  and 
traditions,  but  so  far  as  I  know,  only  one  (De 
Ronge,  Revile  Contemporaiiie,  1856,)  has  ever 
dreamed  of  tracing  Hebrew  poetry  to  the  land 
of  the  Pharaohs.     The  very  thought  is  absurd. 
How    could  that    rainless  reo-ion  with    its  one 
river  and   its  one  monotonous  plain  from    the 
cataracts  to  the  sea,  suggest  the  boundless  and 
varied  stock  of  images   and  expressions  which 
are  found  in  the  Psalms  ?     These  in  their  com- 
bination could  come  alone  from  such  a  land  as 
Palestine,  with  its  hills  and  dales ;  its  fountains, 
wells,  and  brooks  ;  its  lakes  and  seas  ;  its  deep 
gorges ;  its  lofty  precipices ;  its  snows  and  hail, 
and  ice,  and  storm,  and  whirlwind  ;   its  orchards 
and  vines,  and  pastures,  and  grain  fields,  and 
gardens  ;  its  fragrant  and  gorgeous  wild  flowers  ; 
its  dense  forests,  where  birds  sing  among  the 
branches,  and  wild  beasts  crouch  in  their  dens  ; 
its  continual  outlook  upon  the  great  sea  on  one 
hand,  and  the  great  desert  on  the  other.     The 
Holy  Land  is  as  distinctly  marked  by  its  natural 


INTRODUCTORY. 


25 


peculiarities  as  it  is  by  its  history  and  traditions. 
Its  physical  geography  is  unlike  that  of  any 
other  country  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  No 
where  is  there  such  a  furrow  on  the  earth's 
surface  as  that  made  by  the  Jordan  in  its  rapid 
and  tortuous  course  from  the  roots  of  Hermon 
to  the  beautiful,  yet  awful  gulf  of  Siddin.  The 
summit  of  Lebanon  is  a  little  short  of  the  limit 
of  perpetual  snow,  while  the  Dead  Sea  is  1,300 
feet  below  the  ocean  level ;  and  therefore  be- 
tween these  limits  are  found  the  temperatures 
of  all  zones  and  their  productions  ;  the  palm  and 
the  sugar  cane,  and  the  cotton,  and  the  fig,  along 
with  the  apple,  the  wheat,  the  barley,  and  the 
grape.  As  Isaac  Taylor  says  in  a  remarkable 
chapter  of  his  Spirit  of  the  Hebrew  Poetry 
(London  Ed.,  p.  72),  "  Palestine  in  the  age  of  its 
wealth  was  a  samplar  of  the  world  ;  it  was  a 
museum  country — many  lands  in  one  ;  the  tread 
of  the  camel  in  two  or  three  hours,  may  now 
give  the  traveller  a  recollection  of  his  own — 
come  whence  he  may,  from  any  country  between 

the  torrid  zone  and  our  northern  latitudes 

Thus  it  was  that  the  Hebrew  poet  found  always 
near  at  hand  those  materials  of  his  art  which 
the  poets  of  other  lands  had  to  seek  for  in  dis- 
tant travel.     Imagery,  gay  or  grave,  was  around 


26  THE  PSALTER. 

him  everywhere,  and  these  materials  included 
contrasts  the  most  extreme." 

Yet  while  the  tone  and  coloring  are  thus  lo- 
cal, while  the  range  of  allusion  and  the  wide 
diversity  of  natural  symbols  point  unerringly  to 
a  Palestinian  origin,  the  moulding  and  charac- 
teristic features  come  from  the  poet  himself 
His  imagery  bears  the  color  and  flavor  of  the 
soil,  but  he  handles  it  for  his  own  purposes. 
He  possesses  and  is  not  possessed  by  his  mate- 
rials. Matter  is  constantly  subordinated  to 
spirit,  and  nature  to  God. 

(4).  Once  more,  the  Psalter  is  absolutely  trtce. 
This  needs  to  be  emphasized,  because  there  are 
those  who  think  that  its  poetical  character  is 
inconsistent  with  trustworthiness.  A  maxim  in 
universal  use  treats  truth  and  poetry  as  if  they 
were  irreconcilable  opposites.  And  Goethe 
wrote  an  autobiography  which  he  entitled  "  Po- 
etry and  Truth  :  from  my  own  Life,"  in  which 
the  contrast  is  very  evident.  The  proportions 
of  reality  and  romance  are  like  those  of  "  the 
half  pennyworth  of  bread  and  the  intolerable 
deal  of  sack,"  in  Falstaff's  bills.  Real  incidents 
are  poetically  treated,  i.  e.,  in  such  a  way  as  to 
give  a  very  different  impression  from  that  which 
an  actual  spectator  of  them  would  receive.     It 


INTRODUCTORY. 


27 


is  quite  otherwise  with  tlie  Psahiis.  In  them 
we  have  an  exempHfication  of  the  statement 
that  poetry  is  essential  truth  alHed  with  feeling-, 
with  imagination,  with  appropriate  and  vigorous 
expression.  It  is  truth  not  argued,  inferred,  or 
proved,  but  truth  seen  and  felt — truth  filling'  the 
soul  and  then  pouring  itself  forth  as  a  fountain 
bursts  out  of  the  earth.  It  is  concerned,  not 
with  the  accidental  and  temporary,  but  with  the 
necessary  and  eternal,  with  the  essence  of  things 
rather  than  details.  Hence  the  profound  Aris- 
totle, himself  anything  but  a  poet,  affirmed 
{De  Poet,  ix.)  "  that  poetry  is  a  more  philosoph- 
ical and  a  more  serious  thing  than  history 
itself."  For  history  treats  of  ra /ca^'sKacrroi',  what 
is  individual,  and  may  or  may  not  be  repeated, 
but  poetry  of  ra  KaO'oXov,  what  is  universal,  true 
in  all  places  and  for  all  time.  Hence  the  poet, 
according  to  his  name,  is  the  maker.  He  does 
not  copy,  but  creates.  His  work  is  the  ideal  em- 
bodied in  and  shininof  throuQ-h  the  real.  It 
gains  at  first  hand,  and  as  if  by  inspiration,  what 
other  writers  and  speakers  reach  by  slow  and 
tentative  processes. 

In  consequence  of  the  subjective  nature  of 
lyric  poetry,  and  the  intense  mental  action  it  ini'^ 
plies,  there  is,  one  can  not  deny,  a  tendency  to 


28  THE  PSALTER. 

excess,  to  extravagance  in  thought  and  utterance. 
Yet  those  who  are  confessedly  the  greatest  of 
epic  poets — Homer,  Dante,  Milton — are  marked 
by  their  truth  and  simplicity,  by  a  calm  repose, 
a  sustained  grandeur,  resulting  from  conscious 
power.  The  same  result  is  reached  in  the 
Psalter,  but  in  another  way.  The  flame  of 
emotion  glows  through  and  through  its  utter- 
ances, transfiguring  and  ennobling  everything, 
but  it  is  always  true  to  nature  when  nature  is 
truest  to  virtue  and  to  wisdom.  The  singer's  ob- 
ject is  not  to  win  admiration  by  the  splendor  of 
genius,  not  to  charm  a  listening  multitude  by 
tricks  of  invention  or  graces  of  song,  but  to 
please  and  honor  the  God  of  truth  by  articulat- 
ing what  He  himself  inspired,  or  by  giving 
form  and  shape  to  the  most  real  and  living  ex- 
periences of  the  human  soul.  Hence  the  ab- 
sence of  all  that  is  unsuitable  in  theme  or  treat- 
ment. No  erotic  songs,  no  poeans  to  a  national 
hero,  no  brilliant  ideals  of  humanity,  no  meretri- 
cious ornament,  nothing  to  dazzle,  bewilder,  or 
delude,  nothing  unreal  or  sophisticated,  but 
everything  stamped  all  the  way  through  with 
the  tokens  of  absolute  truth.  Take,  for  exam- 
ple, the  One  Hundred  and  F'ourth  Psalm,  a  divine 
ode   of  creation,  a   lyrical  poem  in  which,   as 


INTRODUCTORY. 


29 


Humboldt  says,  "we  are  astonished  to  find  in 
such  hmited  compass,  the  whole  univ^erse — the 
heavens  and  the  earth  sketched  with  a  few  bold 
touches.  The  contrast  of  the  labor  of  man 
with  the  animal  life  of  nature,  and  the  image  of 
omnipresent,  invisible  Power  renewing  the  earth 
at  will  or  sweeping  it  of  its  inhabitants,  is  a 
grand  and  solemn  poetical  creation."  The  sa- 
cred songster  follows  the  first  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis. What  Moses  represents  in  narrative  prose, 
the  psalmist  sets  forth  in  a  series  of  living  pic- 
tures, which,  for  depth  of  color,  brightness, 
tenderness,  beauty,  and  grace,  have  never  been 
surpassed.  It  is  a  continuous  series  of  vivid 
images — Jehovah  clothed  with  light  as  a  gar- 
ment, making  the  clouds  His  chariot,  and  moving 
upon  the  wings  of  the  wind ;  the  wild  ass 
quenching  his  thirst  at  streams  which  God  pro- 
vides ;  the  birds  singing  among  the  branches ; 
the  wild  QToats  findino-  a  home  in  inaccessible 
crags ;  the  young  lions  seeking  from  God  their 
prey ;  the  sea  with  the  same  fulness  of  life — 
its  depths  peopled  with  monsters,  and  its  sur- 
face studded  with  sails ;  and  then,  in  fine  con- 
trast with  this  animal  activity  of  lower  creatures, 
the  even  tenor  and  calm  dignity  of  man's  daily 
life  of  labor.    Yet  with  all  this  exuberant  energy 


20  THE  PSALTER. 

and  fertile  play  of  the  imag-ination,  there  is  not 
a  single  false  note,  not  a  solitary  departure  from 
the  purest  and  highest  truth.  On  the  contrary, 
even  the  early  record  in  Genesis,  so  remarkable 
as  to  have  attracted  the  praise  of  the  heathen 
Longinus,  does  not  set  forth  so  strikingly  the 
infinite  greatness,  the  order,  the  life  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  its  absolute  dependence  upon  God. 
The  same  thing  is  vividly  illustrated  in  an- 
other and  very  different  psalm,  the  Eighteenth. 
This  is  a  grateful  retrospect  by  David  of  his 
peculiar  career  down  to  the  time  when  he  sat 
upon  the  throne  of  all  Israel,  and  saw  his  ene- 
mies on  all  sides  subdued.  He  begins  with  a 
series  of  lively  figures  denoting  what  God  had 
been  to  him  during  his  pilgrimage — his  rock  (of 
strength),  his  fortress,  his  deliverer,  his  rock 
(of  refuge),  his  shield,  his  horn  of  salvation,  his 
high  tower.  Then  after  setting  forth  the  des- 
perate extremities  in  which  he  had  fallen,  he 
describes  his  deliverance.  But  how  ?  Not  by 
a  minute  recital  of  his  conflict  with  the  lion  and 
the  bear,  or  with  Goliath,  his  escape  from  the 
spear  of  Saul  or  the  bows  of  the  Philistines,  his 
refuofe  at  Adullam  or  Enofedi,  the  defeat  of  the 
men  of  Keilah,  or  the  means  by  which  the  hot 
pursuit  of  the    fugitive    was  again    and    again 


IN  TROD  UCTOR  V. 


31 


checked  just  at  the  point  of  success.  No  ;  he 
masses  all  together,  as  if  performed  at  one  time 
and  by  one  act,  and  pictures  the  whole  as  a 
magnilicent  Theophany.  God  comes  to  the 
rescue  as  He  came  of  old  to  Sinai,  and  all  nature 
is  moved  at  His  coming.  The  earth  quakes  and 
even  mountains  reel.  Amid  vaporous  clouds 
the  blaze  of  liorhtninof  is  seen.  Then  the 
heavens  seem  to  sink  toward  the  earth,  and 
amid  the  increasing  gloom,  behold,  Jehovah 
riding  upon  the  Cherubim,  flying  upon  the 
wings  of  the  wind.  Darkness  is  His  pavilion 
round  about  Him,  but  the  brightness  of  His  pres- 
ence dissipates  the  gathering  clouds  and  the 
full  fury  of  the  storm  bursts  forth.  Thunder 
and  lightning,  hailstones  and  coals  of  fire, 
scatter  all  foes,  and  lay  bare  the  depths  of  the 
sea  and  the  very  foundations  of  the  world.  The 
consequence  is  the  swift  and  certain  deliverance 
of  David.  Now  not  a  word  of  this  is  to  be 
taken  literally.  The  whole  is  a  grand  poetic 
picture,  transferring  to  an  individual  experience 
the  memorable  display  at  the  giving  of  the  law. 
At  no  time  did  David  see,  except  in  imagination, 
the  burning  coals,  the  flying  Cherub,  the  bared 
sea-bottom.  Yet  he  has  truly  expressed  the 
fact   in  relation  to  the  marvellous   Providence 


32 


THE  PSALTER. 


which  watched  over  his  course  from  the  sheep- 
fold  to  the  throne.  The  actual  care  of  God  for 
His  servant  was  as  real  and  great,  and  effective 
as  it  could  have  been,  had  He  came  down  in 
person  to  manifest  it.  The  lofty  lyric  is  there- 
fore true.  It  is  not  mere  poetic  license  or 
fancy's  exaggeration,  but  the  vivid  lyric  expres- 
sion of  what  occurred,  not  once  only,  nor  twice, 
but  over  and  over  during  a  lifetime. 

Now  it  is  just  this  truth  of  the  Psalter  which 
is  the  foundation  of  the  argument  I  have  under- 
taken to  present.  That  argument  is  strictly  a 
fo7'tiori.  Leaving  out  of  view  the  prose  of 
Scripture,  its  history,  its  dogma,  its  ethics,  its 
prophecy,  whatever  belongs  to  the  discursive 
faculty,  and  treating  only  of  one  of  those  por- 
tions in  which  imagination  and  feeling  predom- 
inate, the  aim  is  to  show  that  here  where 
exaggeration  and  error  might  most  of  all  be 
looked  for,  where  tongue  and  pen  run  riot, 
where  it  is  common  to  excuse  aberrations  from 
propriety  on  the  ground  that  the  poet  must 
needs  have  license,  just  here  there  is  no  need 
for  any  abatement  or  qualification  whatever. 
Wide  as  is  the  range  of  the  Hebrew  harp, 
varied  as  are  its  tones,  intense  as  is  its  action,  and 
spontaneous  as  is  its  movement,  yet  throughout 


INTRODUCTORY. 


33 


it  never  teaches,  nor  suggests,  nor  implies  what 
is  wronof  in  doctrine  or  in  morals.  In  the  Hve- 
Hest  play  of  the  imagination,  in  the  most  soar- 
ing flight  of  dithyrambic  fervor,  there  is  a  some- 
thing which  keeps  the  singer  from  ever  trans- 
gressing the  bounds  of  reason  and  truth.  Not 
that  the  Hebrew  poets  move  in  fetters  or  reel 
off  their  strains  from  a  machine.  They  are  the 
freest  of  all  writers.  The  whole  form  and 
color  of  their  utterances  proceed  from  their 
personal  character  and  circumstances,  and  ex- 
press the  direct  action  of  a  human  soul  moved 
from  within  and  not  from  without.  Yet  when 
subjected  to  a  rigid  scrutiny,  these  lyric  out- 
bursts are  found  to  have  a  correctness  and  a 
purity,  the  like  of  which  has  never  been  seen 
anywhere  else  since  the  world  began.  The 
argument  is  that  if  this  be  the  fact,  then  only  a 
supernatural,  a  divine  influence  can  account  for 
it.  And  if  the  songs  of  sacred  Scripture  be 
doctrinally  and  morally  correct,  much  more 
must  be  its  prosaic  utterances. 
2* 


LECTURE    II. 

THE    DOCTRINE    OF    GOD    IN    THE    PSALTER. 


LECTURE    IL 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    GOD. 

IMPORTANCE  OF  THIS  POINT — THE  PSALTER  TEACHES  THAT 
GOD  IS  ONE  — DISTINCT  FROM  THE  WORLD — OF  INFINITE 
PERFECTION — HOLY — CONTRAST  OF  THE  GRECIAN  HYMNS 
— OF  THE  VEDAS — OF  THE  AVESTAN — NOT  A  QUESTION  OF 
RACE— CONCLUSION. 

THE  history  of  the  Christian  Church  is  a  his- 
tory of  the  development  of  Christian  doc- 
trine. Of  development  in  the  natural  sense,  and 
not  in  the  non-natural  sense  in  which  the  word 
was  employed  by  Dr.  Newman  in  his  attempt  to 
justify  on  this  ground  all  the  novelties  of  modern 
and  mediaeval  Popery.  The  whole  mind  and 
will  of  God  for  human  salvation  was,  as  we  be- 
lieve and  are  sure,  recorded  in  the  Scripture, 
and  as  such  admits  of  neither  diminution  nor 
increase.  But  the  full  meaning  and  explication 
of  particular  doctrines  was  not  understood  and 
formulated  until,  in  course  of  time,  reflection,  ex- 
perience, and  especially  the  sharp  attacks  of  er- 
rorists,  enabled  the  Church  to  draw  the  line  ac- 
curately between  the  truth  and  that  which  falsely 

(37) 


38 


THE  PSALTER. 


assumed  to  take  its  place.  Thus  was  formed 
what  is  justly  called  the  historical  faith  of  the 
Church.  Now  it  is  notable  that  the  first  article 
of  the  common  faith  which  was  thus  put  under 
fire,  and  subjected  to  keen  and  unsparing  criti- 
cism, was  the  doctrine  of  God.  The  Ebionite, 
Gnostic,  Manichsean,  Arian,  ApoUinarian,  Sabel- 
lian,  and  Tritheistic  heresies,  all  bear  witness  to 
the  severity  of  the  conflict.  Nor  is  it  at  all  won- 
derful that  strife  should  begin  just  here.  The 
object  of  worship  is  the  first  point  in  all  re- 
ligion. This  decides  everything  else,  in  the 
sense  that  if  a  man  be  wrong  here,  he  will  be 
so  throughout.  If  he  believe  the  Deity  to 
be  impersonal,  or  identified  with  the  world,  or 
more  than  one,  or  without  providence,  or  lim- 
ited, or  partial,  or  immoral,  all  his  other  beliefs 
will  be  modified  accordingly.  The  stream  can 
not  rise  higher  than  its  fountain,  nor  can  the 
worshipper  be  better  than  the  Being  whom  he 
worships. 

I  propose  in  this  lecture  to  consider  what  is 
plainly  taught  or  necessarily  implied  in  the 
Psalms  respecting  the  being,  character,  and  per- 
fections of  God,  and  then  to  compare  it  with  the 
views  given  in  other  sacred  anthologies,  and 
from  the  comparison  draw  such  inferences  as 


THE  DOCTRIXE  OF  GOD. 


39 


are  fairly  deducible.  This  course  is  the  more 
interesting  and  suggestive,  because  it  does  not 
compare  creed  with  creed,  or  law  with  law  ; 
does  not  take  up  abstract  formularies,  carefully 
prepared  and  guarded,  but  deals  with  the  actual 
workings  of  the  religious  principle,  and  shows 
how  men,  under  the  deepest  excitements  of 
feeling,  conceived  and  represented  Him  whom 
they  call  God  ;  so  that  we  learn  not  only  what 
they  professed,  but  what  they  actually  believed, 
what  really  entered  into  and  moulded  life  and 
character, 

(i).  The  Psalter  knows  of  only  one  God.  A 
great  variety  of  names  is  applied  to  Him,  but  it 
is  always  one  and  the  same  Being  that  is  meant. 
Some  of  these  names  are  plural  in  form,  and 
seem  to  suggest  a  plurality  of  persons  in  one 
substance — a  suggestion  which  is  further  con- 
firmed by  the  language  of  the  Second  Psalm 
and  the  One  Hundred  and  Tenth ;  but  however 
that  may  be,  or  whatever  explanation  of  these 
peculiarities  may  be  adopted,  none  can  ques- 
tion that  the  unity  of  the  Divine  Essence  is 
maintained  throughout  the  entire  book.  Men- 
tion is  indeed  made  of  other  gods,  but  never  in 
the  way  of  recognizing  them  as  having  a  real 
existence,   but  as   subsisting  only  in  the  vain 


.Q  THE  PSALTER. 

imaginations  of  their  worshippers.  Instead  of 
being  considered  as  actual  rivals,  they  are  call- 
ed false  gods,  idol  gods,  no  gods.  It  is  true 
we  find  no  such  formal  and  stately  assertions  of 
the  divine  unity  as  are  given  by  Moses :  "  The 
Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord  "  (Deuteronomy  vi. 
4)  ;  or  Hezekiah,  "  Thou  art  the  God,  even  thou 
alone,  of  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth "  (2 
Kings  xix.  15)  ;  or  Isaiah,  "  I  am  the  Lord,  and 
there  is  no  God  besides  me"  (xlv.  6)  ;  but  it  is  a 
stronger  testimony  when  we  find  all  the  utter- 
ances of  deep  emotion,  whether  glad  or  sor- 
rowful, implying,  as  if  unconsciously,  or  as  if  it 
were  a  matter  about  which  no  dispute  could 
exist,  that  the  object  of  worship  is  One.  No 
hint  is  given  either  of  Dualism  or  Polytheism, 
although  the  writers  were  just  as  much  tempted 
as  any  of  their  neighbors  on  the  East  or  the 
West  to  fall  back  on  these  plausible,  biit  super- 
ficial, methods  of  escaping  from  the  difficulties 
met  in  understanding  the  moral  government  of 
the  world.  But  while  the  Hebrew  Lyrics  main- 
tain thus  clearly  One  God,  they  also  represent 
Him  throughout  as — 

(2).  Distinct  from  the  world.  Pantheism  is 
the  oldest  and  at  the  same  time  the  youngest 
of  religious  errors.      Its  origin  is  sought  among 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD.  4 1 

the  most  ancient  traditions  of  the  race,  and  yet 
to-day  it  is  professed  by  not  a  few,  even 
under  the  broad  blaze  of  the  Christian  Revela- 
tion. There  appears  to  be  something  strangely 
attractive  in  the  conception  of  one  eternal  sub- 
stance of  which  all  that  appears  from  age  to 
age  is  only  a  temporary  modification.  Men  do 
not  like  either  the  name  or  the  fact  of  being 
atheists,  and  they  take  refuge  from  the  disa- 
greeable necessity  in  a  scheme  of  thought  which 
identifies  God  and  the  universe  ;  and  yet  there 
is  no  one  but  knows  that  to  make  everything 
God,  and  to  say  that  there  is  no  God,  practically 
amounts  to  the  same  thing.  All  that  is  useful 
in  Theism  is  equally  done  away  in  both  cases. 
Yet  ancient  and  widespread  and  enticing  as 
this  error  is,  there  is  not  the  least  trace  of  it  in 
the  Psalms.  They  have  much  to  say  of  God 
and  much  to  say  of  His  works,  but  the  two  are 
never  represented  as  necessary  and  constituent 
parts  of  one  whole.  On  the  contrary,  they  are 
sharply  distinguished.  God,  the  personal  God, 
is  Maker  and  Ruler,  while  men  and  things  are 
the  product  of  His  creative  hand.  "  He  spake, 
and  it  was  done  ;  He  commanded,  and  it  stood 
fast "  (xxxiii.  9).  There  are  several  of  what 
might  be  called  Psalms  of  Nature,  in  which  there 


42 


THE  PSALTER. 


is  a  detailed  description  of  natural  objects  ;  but 
never  is  there  even  a  trace  of  pantheistic  thought 
or  expression.  Sun  and  moon,  and  the  stars  of 
light,  dragons  and  all  deeps,  mountains  and  all 
hills,  fruitful  trees  and  all  cedars,  beasts  and  all 
cattle,  creeping  things  and  flying  fowl — in  short, 
the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  whatever  they 
contain,  all,  all  are  creatures  of  the  divine  power. 
"Whatsoever  the  Lord  pleased,  that  did  He  in 
heaven,  and  in  earth,  in  the  seas,  and  all  depths  " 
(cxxxv.  6).  The  sacred  writers  are  familiar 
with  all  the  grand  or  beautiful  aspects  of  the 
external  world  which  in  every  age  have  been 
the  poet's  storehouse  of  images  and  of  senti- 
ment ;  but  we  never  find  anything  like  the  quasi- 
independence  of  nature  which  is  disagreeably 
prominent  in  modern  poets,  such  as  Words- 
worth and  Bryant.  One  of  the  most  admired 
productions  of  the  former  is  the  well-known 
Tintern  Abbey.  Who  does  not  remember  the 
fine  passage  beginning, — 

For  I  have  learned 
To  look  on  nature,  not  as  in  the  hour 
Of  thoughtless  youth  ;  but  hearing  oftentimes 
The  still  sad  music  of  humanity, 
Nor  harsh,  nor  grating,  though  of  ample  power 
To  chasten  and  subdue. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD. 


43 


The  poet  describes  with  wonderful  strength 
and  beauty  the  influence  of  external  nature  upon 
the  human  heart,  showing-,  as  does  the  whole 
piece,  his  imaginative  force,  his  spiritual  insight, 
and  his  power  of  vivid  characterization.  "  His 
thoughts  are  fresh  and  have  the  dew  on  them." 
Yet  at  the  close  he  outrages  all  propriety  in 
saying  that  he  is 

Well  pleased  to  recognize 
In  nature,  and  the  language  of  the  sense. 
The  anchor  of  my  purest  thoughts,  the  nurse, 
The  guide,  the  guardian  of  my  heart,  and  soul 
Of  all  my  moral  being. 

For  this  is  simply  to  make  nature  take  the 
place  of  God  to  the  soul.  The  poet  confounds 
the  soft  sensations  produced  by  the  beauties  of 
the  world  of  sense,  with  the  moral  emotions 
which  the  thought  of  the  good  God  working  in 
them  produces.  It  is  every  way  desirable  to 
"  see  into  the  life  of  things,"  and  to  be  able  to 
obtain  even  from  the  meanest  flower  that  blows 
"thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears," 
but  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  call  or  consider 
all  the  emotions  awakened  by  nature,  piety. 
This  is  a  perilous  confusion  of  things  that  differ. 
Robertson  of  Brighton  vindicates  this  passage 


44 


THE  F SALTER. 


from  the  charge  of  Pantheism  by  referring-  to 
other  poems  of  the  author  tending  in  a  directly 
opposite  direction,  which,  of  course,  are  to  be 
taken  into  account  in  estimating  his  position. 
But  in  the  Psalter  there  is  no  need  of  balancing 
one  portion  against  another.  The  Hebrew 
singers  looked  upon  the  earth's  fair  variety  of 
things  with  as  much  kindling  imagination  and 
reflective  insight  as  any  poet  of  ancient  India  or 
modern  England  ;  but  never  for  an  instant,  or 
under  any  circumstances,  did  they  use  language 
which  could  suggest  that  they  identified  the 
world  and  its  Maker,  but  just  the  contrary.  For 
example,  in  the  magnificent  storm  described  in 
Ps.  xxix,  which,  as  Delitzsch  says,  begins  with 
a  gloria  i7t  excelsis,  and  ends  in  2,  pax  in  terris  ; 
every  feature — the  gathering  fury  of  the  ele- 
ments, the  peal  of  thunder,  the  flash  of  the 
lightning,  the  crashing  cedars,  and  the  quaking 
mountains — is  ascribed  directly  to  the  Lord  who 
sits  as  King  forever,  and  who,  controlling  the 
wildest  uproar  of  earth,  gives  to  His  people  both 
strength  and  peace. 

The  works  of  the  American  writer  referred 
to  contain  an  exquisite  poem,  entitled  Thana- 
topsis,  written  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  and  per- 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD. 


45 


haps  unsurpassed  by  anything-  produced  in  the 
long  course  of  the  author's  after  years.  It  be- 
gins,— 

To  Him  who  in  the  love  of  nature  holds 
Communion  with  her  visible  forms,  she  speaks 
A  various  language  ; 

and  it  proceeds  to  interpret  that  language  under 
varying  circumstances,  especially  in  reference  to 
the  end  of  life.  Yet  even  the  name  of  God 
does  not  once  occur.  The  author  was,  we 
know,  as  he  still  is,  a  Christian,  yet  his  verse 
might  have  been  written  by  a  firm  believer  in 
Spinoza  or  Hegel.  I  am  not  finding  fault  with 
the  poem.  Its  perfect  rhythm,  its  unity,  its  sus- 
tained thought,  its  felicities  of  allusion  and  ex- 
pression disarm  criticism.  And  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  in  other  efforts  of  Mr.  Bryant's 
muse,  such  as  the  noble  Forest  Hymn,  the  the- 
istic  recognition  is  as  distinct  as  any  one  could 
desire.  But  the  characteristic  of  the  Psalter  is 
that  there  are  no  exceptions  to  its  tone.  It 
holds  firmly  to  the  everlasting  distinction  be- 
tween the  universe  and  its  Creator.  All  nature 
IS  but  the  expression  of  God's  glory,  and  it  al- 
ways points  to  something  above  and  beyond 
itself  Nor  is  there  a  line  inconsistent  with  the 
lofty  utterance  at  the  close  of  Psalm  cii., — 


46 


THE  PSALTER. 

Of  old  hast  Thou  laid  the  foundation  of  the  earth. 

And  the  heavens  are  the  work  of  Thy  hands  ; 

They  shall  perish,  but  Thou  remainest, 

Yea,  all  of  them  shall  wax  old  as  a  garment, 

As  a  vesture  shalt  Thou  change  them,  and  they  shall 

be  changed  ; 
But  Thou  art  the  same. 
And  Thy  years  shall  have  no  end. 


(3).  The  God  of  the  Psalter  is  not  only  God 
alone,  and  distinct  from  the  world,  but  possess- 
ed of  infinite  attributes.  These  are  sometimes 
formally  stated,  at  others  quietly  assumed  as 
the  basis  of  prayer,  praise,  or  devout  medita- 
tion. We,  of  course,  are  familiar  with  the  con- 
ception of  God  as  the  infinite  Spirit  in  whom  all 
excellence  inheres.  But  the  glory  of  the  Psalm- 
ists is  that,  writing  when  and  where  they  did, 
they  made  no  mistakes  upon  the  subject. 
Neither  tradition,  nor  philosophy,  nor  concep- 
tions borrowed  from  their  neighbors,  ever  led 
them  to  any  unworthy  representations  of  the 
object  of  worship.  Take,  for  example,  the  first 
attribute  of  Deity  which  suggests  itself  to  man, 
that  of  Power.  If  God  be  distinct  from  the 
world,  then  either  He  made  the  world,  or,  what 
seems  to  be  the  natural  outcome  of  the  Devel- 
opment Theory  when  pushed  to  its  legitimate 
results,  the  world   made  God.     The   Psalmists 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD.  47 

have  no  hesitation  here.  To  them  God  is 
Ti"'b3!;,  the  most  High,  and  i^p,  the  Ahnighty.  To 
Him  none  on  earth,  none  in  heaven  are  to  be 
compared.  Strong  is  His  hand,  high  is  His 
right  hand.  The  heavens  are  His,  the  earth 
also  is  His  ;  as  for  the  world  and  the  fulness 
thereof,  He  has  founded  them  (Ixxxix.)  He  sits 
serene  upon  the  flood,  yea.  He  sits  as  King  for- 
ever. The  power  of  men,  of  all  creatures,  is 
necessarily  limited.  We  must  use  means  to  ac- 
complish our  ends,  and  patiently  contrive  expe- 
dients to  make  nature  subservient  to  our  pur- 
poses. But  God  wills,  and  it  is  done.  He  ac- 
complishes without  effort  whatever  seems  good 
to  Him.  As  the  Thirty-third  Psalm  says, 
"  By  the  word  of  the  Lord  were  the  heavens 
made  ;  and  all  the  host  of  them  by  the  breath 
of  His  mouth."  The  idea  of  creation  as  wrouo-ht 

o 

either  by  necessity  or  by  law  never  seems  to 
have  occurred  to  the  Hebrew  singers.  All 
that  is  seen  is  due  to  One  Supreme  Personal 
Will.  "  Our  God  is  in  the  heavens  ;  He  hath 
done  whatsoever  He  pleased  "  (cxv.  3). 

So  also  of  God's  Eternity.  There  is  no  at- 
tempt at  a  philosophical  explanation  of  timeless 
existence,  but  a  simple  distinct  assertion  that 
the  Lord  is  exalted  above  all  the  limitations  of 


48 


THE  PSALTER. 


time.     This  indeed  is  implied  in  the  peculiar, 
revealed,  covenant  name,  Jehovah — I  am. 

The  sublime  thought  of  self-existence  in- 
volves the  similar  thought  of  eternity.  But  the 
Psalter  affirms  the  truth  in  direct  words  : 

Before  the  mountains  were  brought  forth, 

Or  ever  Thou  gavest  birth  to  the  earth  and  the  world. 

Even  from  everlasting  to  everlasting  Thou  art  God, 

A  thousand  years  in  Thy  sight 

Are  but  as  yesterday  when  it  passeth. 

And  as  a  watch  in  the  night. — (xc). 

He,  therefore,  is  without  beginning  of  days 
or  end  of  years.  He  is.  He  always  has  been, 
He  always  will  be.  With  Him  there  is  no  dis- 
tinction between  the  past,  the  present,  and  the 
future.  "A  thousand  years  are  in  Thy  sight 
as  yesterday  when  it  is  passed."  With  Him 
duration  is  an  eternal  now.  But  this  thouQfht 
is  uttered  not  as  a  mere  sentiment,  but  in  liv- 
ing contrast  with  man's  brief,  shifting,  troubled 
years,  and  as  an  ever-enduring  support  un- 
der the  consciousness  of  human  sin  and  frailty. 
For  which  reason  the  lofty  and  plaintive  Psalm 
I  have  quoted  is  read  to-day  at  a  Christian 
funeral  with  the  same  propriety  and  force  as 
when  three  thousand  years  ago  men  first  turned 
in  their  sorrow  to  the  Eternal  God  as  a  Refucre. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD 


49 


In  like  manner  are  we  taught  respecting 
God's  immensity.  He  is  infinite  in  relation  to 
space  just  as  He  is  in  relation  to  time.  He  is 
equally  present  with  all  His  creatures,  at  all 
times  and  in  all  places.  No  explanation  of  the 
truth  is  given  or  attempted,  but  the  fact  is  set 
forth  with  wonderful  power  and  beauty. 

Whither  shall  I  go  from  Thy  Spirit? 

Or  whifher  shall  I  flee  from  Thy  presence? 

If  I  ascend  into  heaven.  Thou  art  there:; 

If  I  make  my  "bed  in  hell,  behold  Thou  art  there. 

If  1  take  the  wings  of  the  morning, 

And  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea; 

Even  there  shall  Thy  hand  lead  me, 

And  Thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me. — (cxxxix). 

It  is  true,  Calvin  says  that  this  passage  is 
wrongly  applied  to  prove  the  infinite  nature  of 
God,  for  the  writer  is  not  concerned  with  meta- 
physical conceptions,  but  with  the  practical 
truth,  that  by  no  change  of  place  or  circum- 
stance can  man  escape  from  the  eye  of  God. 
Undoubtedly  the  immediate  aim  is  what  the  great 
Reformer  states,  but  in  reachlRg  this  the  Psalm- 
ist does  assert  the  divine  omnipresence,  not 
theoretically,  but  as  an  actual  fact.  And  the 
way  in  which  he  does  it  shows  only  the  more 
vividly  that  he  does  not  hold  it  as  a  mere  ab- 
3 


50 


THE  PSALTER. 


stract  dogma,  but  as  a  vital  truth,  powerfully 
influencing  one's  heart  and  life.  As  God  acts 
everywhere,  so  is  He  present  everywhere. 
Spiritual,  without  form,  and  therefore  invisible. 
He  is  present  with  every  blade  of  grass,  every 
fish  of  the  sea  or  bird  of  the  air,  with  every 
thought  of  man's  heart,  with  every  angel,  fallen 
or  elect,  with  every  star  in  the  firmament,  with 
all  the  works  of  His  hands  throughout  illimita- 
ble space.  And  as  with  His  presence,  so  with 
His  knowledge.  It  is  without  bounds.  Here 
again  we  find  none  of  the  speculations  with 
which  theologians  and  scholars  have  wearied 
themselves  in  all  ages,  but  simple  unambiguous 
statements,  which  convey  the  truth  distinctly  to 
the  mind  of  the  most  unlettered.  Indeed,  so 
far  from  attempting  to  explain  the  truth,  the 
writers  confess  their  inability  to  comprehend  it. 
As  we  see  in  the  opening  of  the  fine  Psalm 
already  quoted. 

O  Lord,  Thou  hast  searched  me  and  known  me. 

Thou  knowest  my  downsitting  and  mine  uprising  ; 

Thou  understandest  my  thought  afar  off. 

Thou  compassest  my  path  and  my  lying  down, 

And  art  acquainted  with  all  my  ways. 

For  there  is  not  a  word  in  my  tongue. 

But  lo,  O  Lord,  Thou  knowest  it  altogether. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  after  this  statement  of 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD. 


51 


God's  exhaustive  knowledge,  the  Psalmist 
should  add,  "Such  knowledge  is  too  wonderful 
for  me ;  it  is  high,  I  cannot  attain  unto  it." 
How  can  the  finite  overtake  the  infinite  ?  Still 
we  can  take  in  and  feel  the  preciousness  of  the 
truth  that  our  God  is  one  whose  knowledge  ex- 
tends to  all  the  past  and  all  the  future,  and  so 
can  be  neither  increased  nor  diminished ;  to 
whom  the  darkness  and  the  light  are  alike  ;  who 
knows  our  thouohts  even  better  than  we  do 
ourselves,  and  who  is,  therefore,  absolutely  per- 
fect. 

(4).  But  while  the  book  is  thus  full  and  clear 
upon  the  natural  attributes  of  the  Most  High, 
it  is  not  less,  but  rather  more,  distinct  and  express 
upon  His  Moral  Perfections.  The  sum  of  these 
is  set  forth  in  one  word,  the  frequency  and  em- 
phasis of  which  in  the  Psalms  separates  them 
widely  from  any  other  so-called  Sacred  Anthol- 
ogy which  the  world  contains.  This  is  Holi- 
ness, which  is  set  forth  as  the  peculiar  and  dif- 
ferentiating characteristic  of  Jehovah. 

Thou  art  holy, 

O  Thou  that  inhabitest  the  praises  of  Israel. — (xxii.  3). 

Unto  Thee  will  I  sing  with  the  harp, 

O  Thou  Holy  One  of  Israel  !  — (Ixxi.  22). 

Exalt  the  Lord  our  God, 


52  THE  PSALTER. 

And  worship  at  His  holy  hill, 

For  He  is  Holy. — (xcix.  9). 

Holy  and  reverend  is  His  name. — (cxi.  9). 


This  term  denotes  entire  freedom  from  moral 
evil  of  any  and  every  kind.  It  is  not  an  excel- 
lence in  any  particular  direction,  but  absolute 
completeness,  and  as  such  it  is  ascribed  to  God 
in  the  most  exclusive  terms.  Evil  can  not  dwell 
with  Him,  the  foolish  shall  not  stand  in  His 
sight.  The  utterance  of  Bildad  (Jobxxv.  5)  on 
this  subject  is  as  true  as  it  is  poetical,  "  Behold 
even  to  the  moon,  and  it  shineth  not ;  yea,  the 
stars  are  not  pure  in  His  sight."  All  creatures, 
even  the  best,  the  angels  who  stand  nearest  the 
throne,  are  mutable  in  their  own  nature  and 
limitted  in  their  capacities.  Holiness  in  them 
is  but  an  accident  or  a  quality,  but  in  God  it  is 
the  very  substance  of  His  nature.  He  is  as 
necessarily  holy  as  He  is  necessarily  God. 

This  is  the  fair  implication  from  the  language 
of  the  sacred  poets.  And  when  we  look  into 
the  peculiar  forms  in  which  this  essential  glory 
of  the  divine  nature  is  manifested,  the  same 
perfection  is  to  be  seen.  The  Psalmists  do  not 
ascribe  to  God  infinite  purity  in  gross,  and  then 
take  it  away  in  detail.      Their  teaching  is  one 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD.  53 

and  the  same  throughout.  Take,  c.  g.,  the 
primary  conception  which  we  have  of  the  Su- 
preme Ruler,  viz.,  that  He  is  just.  The  doc- 
trine is  that  in  all  His  dealings  with  His  rational 
creatures  He  is  righteous.  His  laws  are  holy 
and  just  and  good,  and  these  laws  are  faithfully 
administered.  There  is  no  partiality  nor  fickle- 
ness. God  renders  to  every  man  according  to 
his  works — never  condemning  the  innocent, 
never  clearing  the  guilty.  Now,  while  it  is  true 
that  this  view  must  be  entertained  by  any  ra- 
tional theist — for  an  unjust  Supreme  God  is  an 
unthinkable  idea — yet  as  we  all  know  by  obser 
vation,  if  not  by  experience,  there  are  many 
thinofs  in  this  world  which  seem  to  militate 
against  the  equity  of  the  governor  of  the  world. 
The  prosperity  of  wicked  men,  and  the  afflic- 
tions of  the  righteous,  apparently,  at  least,  pre- 
sent a  constant  impeachment  of  the  divine  jus- 
tice. This  mournful  contrast  has  always  existed 
as  it  does  now ;  and  it  was  distinctly  recognized 
by  the  Psalmists.  Nay,  they  present  it  not  un- 
frequently  with  the  greatest  vividness,  and  often 
in  the  way  of  earnest  complaint.  It  is  the  bur- 
den of  many  a  prayer,  the  source  of  many  a 
painful  perplexity.  God's  providence  seems  to 
run  counter  to  His  repeated  promises,  and  the 


54 


THE  PSALTER. 


pious  sufferer  is  tempted  to  say,  "Verily,  in 
vain  have  I  cleansed  my  heart,  and  washed  my 
hands  in  innocency."  But  never  for  one  mo- 
ment is  the  rectitude  of  Jehovah  questioned. 
In  the  darkest  hour,  when  flesh  and  heart  fail, 
the  soul  still  holds  firmly  that  the  Judge  of  all 
the  earth  must  do  riofht.  Clouds  and  darkness 
may  be  around  Him,  but  righteousness  and  judg- 
ment are  the  habitation  of  His  throne  (xcvii.  2). 
Nor  is  the  divine  righteousness  a  mere  name, 
but  a  reality.  Jehovah  is  the  God  to  whom 
vengeance  belongeth.  He  is  angry  with  the 
wicked  every  day.  A  fire  goeth  before  Him 
and  burnetii  up  His  enemies  round  about 
(xcvii.)  He  teareth  in  pieces,  and  there  is  none 
to  deliver  (1.  22).  No  combinations  succeed 
against  Him  ;  "  He  that  sitteth  in  the  heavens 
shall  laugh."  Nor  do  any  outward  professions 
of  rectitude  avail ;  "  Unto  the  wicked  He  saith, 
What  hast  thou  to  do  to  declare  my  statutes, 
or  that  thou  shouldst  take  my  covenant  in  thy 
mouth  ? "  And  yet  side  by  side  with  these 
assertions  of  God's  strict  punitive  righteous- 
ness are  the  most  ample  and  express  statements 
of  His  erace. 


t> 


How  excellent  is  Thy  loving-kindness,  O  Lord  ! — (xxxvi.  7). 
The  Lord  is  good,  His  mercy  is  everlasting — (c.  3). 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD.  55 

The  Lord  is  merciful  and  gracious, 

Slow  to  anger  and  plenteous  in  kindness. 

He  will  not  always  chide, 

Neither  keep  His  anger  forever. 

For  as  the  heaven  is  high  above  the  earth. 

So  great  is  His  mercy  toward  them  that  fear  Him. 

— (ciii.  8,  9,  II). 

Every  reader  is  familiar  with  these  amiable 
and  winning"  representations  of  God.  They 
run  through  and  through  the  book.  And  they 
concur  with  the  sterner  utterances  before  cited 
to  round  out  one  absolutely  complete  concep- 
tion— a  God,  holy  yet  gracious,  just  yet  merci- 
ful. Neither  attribute  is  sacrificed  to  the  other. 
No  one-sidedness  is  to  be  seen.  In  the  same 
collection  we  have  a  psalm  like  the  Fiftieth,  de- 
scribing in  sublime  strains  Jehovah's  universal 
judgment,  and  another,  like  the  One  Hundred 
and  Thirty-sixth,  where  the  refrain  of  every 
verse  is,  ''His  mercy  endureth  forever."  The 
precise  theoretical  reconciliation  of  these  per- 
fections could  not,  of  course,  be  known  to  the 
ancient  saints  as  it  is  to  us  who  live  since  the 
Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  ;  but  the  pecul- 
iarity of  the  case  is  that,  without  the  flood  of 
light  shed  by  the  Gospel,  these  sacred  poets, 
writing  at  such  different  times  and  places,  yet 
held  the  balance  so  even,  and  set  forth  an  idea 


56 


THE  PSALTER' 


of  God  as  men's  ruler  and  judge  so  well-poised 
and  adequate,  that  even  the  New  Testament 
does  not  alter  the  lines.  The  best  thoughts  of 
the  best  Christians  toward  God  are  still  fully 
and  justly  expressed  in  the  words  of  the  old 
Psalmists — and  that  not  coldly  nor  dogmatically, 
but  with  the  energy  and  fire  with  which  the 
soul  is  stirred  when  it  comes  to  a  hand  to  hand 
grapple  with  the  great  problems  of  human  life 
and  human  destiny. 

Such,  then,  is  the  theology  of  the  Psalter. 
No  mysticism,  no  vagueness,  no  confusion,  but 
the  clear  conception  of  one  infinite  and  eternal 
Being  ;  a  personal  Spirit,  who,  instead  of  being 
of  the  world  or  identified  with  it,  is  its  Maker 
and  Ruler  ;  who  has  all  conceivable  perfections  ; 
who  does  according  to  His  own  will,  at  all  times 
and  in  all  places  ;  but  who  although  thus  exalted 
makes  Himself  known  to  His  creatures,  directs 
their  service,  accepts  their  praises,  hears  their 
prayers,  counts  their  tears,  soothes  their  sor- 
rows, forgives  their  sins,  quickens  their  souls, 
and  is  their  refuge,  counsellor,  friend  and  father. 
And  all  this,  not  drawn  into  a  creed,  nor 
arranged  in  logical  formulas,  but  wrought  into 
the  experience  and  expressed  in  the  words  of 
men  under  the  deepest  excitements  of  feeling. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD. 


57 


How  came  they  to  give  utterance  to  such  a 
noble  and  consistent  conception  of  God  ?  Their 
case  stands  alone  in  all  the  records  of  ancient 
times.  Other  races  and  nations  indeed  had 
their  sacred  poems,  their  hymns  to  the  gods, 
their  expression  in  lyrical  form  of  religious  and 
devotional  feeling,  but  nothing  comparable  to  the 
strains  of  David,  or  Heman,  or  Asaph.  Take 
the  ancient  Greeks.  We  have  a  small  collec- 
tion of  Hymns  to  the  Gods,  popularly  known  as 
the  Minor  Homeric  Poems,  and  once  supposed 
to  be  the  work  of  Homer,  but  now  known  to 
be  of  a  different  authorship.  The  first  remark 
to  be  made  of  them  is  that  they  are  polytheistic. 
All  are  addressed  to  different  orods  and  eod- 
desses,  and  although  they  are  exquisite  produc- 
tions of  the  muse,  abounding  in  tenderness,  or 
grace,  or  humor,  and  expressed  with  all  the 
curious  felicity  of  phrase  natural  to  the  best 
poets  of  Hellas,  they  have  no  claim  whatever 
to  consideration  as  utterances  of  serious  devo- 
tion. Instead  of  offering  devout  w^orship  to  one 
supreme  and  infinitely  exalted,  yet  gracious 
Being,  they  celebrate  the  power,  the  wisdom, 
the  adventures,  the  amours,  the  pranks  of 
Apollo,  or  Mercury,  or  Venus,  or  Ceres,  or 
Mars,  or  Bacchus.  .   The  hymn  to  Aphrodite  or 


58 


THE  PSALTER. 


Venus  recounts  at  leno^th  her  liaison  with  An- 
chises,  and  although  an  English  editor  speaks 
of  its  instinctive  propriety  of  manner  and  words, 
yet  I  am  quite  sure  it  could  not  be  read  before 
any  such  audience  as  I  now  address,  much  less 
a  promiscuous  assembly.  So  the  hymn  to  Mer- 
cury is  simply  a  diverting  recital  of  the  exploits 
of  this  little  born  rogue  among  the  dwellers  of 
Olympus — how  he  stole  the  oxen  of  the  sun,  and 
what  enormous  lies  he  told  to  Apollo  and  to=  Ju- 
piter when  charged  with  his  offence.  The 
nearest  resemblance  to  it  in  modern  literature, 
that  I  know  of,  is  Moliere's  Comedy,  entitled 
Lcs  Foiirbcries  de  Scapin.  And  although  the 
hymns  to  the  Delian  and  the  Pythian  Apollo 
do  not  shock  morality  so  grossly,  yet  with  all 
their  poetic  fire  and  beauty,  they  display  a 
coarseness  of  thought  and  feeling,  and  an  ex- 
ercise of  low  earth-born  tempers  in  the  immor- 
tals, wholly  incompatible  with  the  reverence 
which  we  instinctively  feel  to  be  due  to  any 
object  of  worship.  Poetic  inspiration  is  found 
abundantly  in  these  Homeric  hymns,  but  of  any 
real  divine  theopneusty  there  is  not  a  trace. 
The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  Theogony  of 
Hesiod,  and  the  hymns  of  Callimachus.  The 
whole  atmosphere  of  these  poems  is  as  differ- 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD.  go 

ent  from  that  of  the  Psalter,  as  jest  is  from 
earnest.  There  is  abundance  of  poetic  feehng, 
of  fine  imagination,  of  dehcate  allusion,  and  be- 
witching- description,  but  not  a  solitary  ex- 
pression of  humilicy,  faith,  or  spiritual  aspiration. 
All  is  of  the  earth,  earthy. 

But  let  us  try  the  comparison  with  the  pro- 
ductions   of    the    Hindu    muse.       Within    the 
present    century    the    treasures  of  the  ancient 
Sanscrit    literature    have    been  exhumed    from 
their  long  grave,  and  by  translation  and  com- 
mentary been  made  known  to  English  readers. 
It   seems  to  be  satisfactorily  made  out  that  a 
considerable    portion  of  the    Rig-Veda  —  very 
much  the    most  important  and  valuable  of  all 
the  Vedas — must  date  back  to  a  period  between 
one  thousand  and  fifteen  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  and    therefore    expresses    the    earliest 
thought    of    the    Aryan   races     upon    religious 
topics.     This  Veda  contains  both  poetry  and 
prose.     The  former,  the  earlier  portion,  consists 
of  ten  books,  in  which  there  are  more  than  a 
thousand  separate  hymns,  all  of  which  are  claim- 
ed by  the  Brahmanic  authorities  to  be  the  result 
of  divine   inspiration — the  work  of  the    Deity 
alone,  down  to  the  very  last  line.     The  whole 
of  these  poems  has  not  yet  beep, translated,  and 


6o  THE  rSAL  TER. 

perhaps  never  will  be  ;  and  much  of  them,  Max 
Miiller  says,    "  Will  and  must  remain  to  us  a 
dead  letter"  {^C hips  from  a  German  Workshop, 
I.,  75),  "  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  introducing- 
ourselves  into  the  circle  of  thouQfht  and  feelinof 
in  which  these  writers  so  far  back,  and  in  such 
different  circumstances  habitually  moved."     Did 
it  not  occur  to  this  scholar  to  ask  why  we  do 
not  have  the  same  difficulty  of  entering  into  the 
Psalmist's  circle  of  thought  and  feeling?     Yet 
enough  has  been  put  into  English  to  enable  us 
justly  to  estimate  the  ethical  or  theological  value 
of  the  whole.     The  same  writer,  a  critic  neither 
incompetent  nor  severe,  says,  "  Large  numbers 
of  the  Vedic  hymns  are  childish  in  the  extreme  ; 
tedious,    low,    common-place.      The    gods  are 
constantly  invoked  to  protect  their  worshippers, 
to  grant  them  food,  large  flocks,  large  families, 
and    a   long  life ;    for    all  which    benefits  they 
are  to  be   rewarded  by  the  praises  and  sacri- 
fices offered  day  after  day,   or  at    certain  sea- 
sons of  the  year.     But  hidden  in  this  rubbish 
are  precious  stones,"  {Chips,  I.,  26).      Now    it 
is    undeniable    that    Monotheism     is     not    the 
doctrine   of  the    Vedas.      In   numberless  cases 
the  hymns  are  addressed  to  individual  deities, 
whose  names   suggest  almost  irresistibly  their 


7 HE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD.  6 1 

origin  from  the  objects  or  forces  of  nature — 
e.  g.,  the  sun,  the  earth,  the  dawn,  the  storms, 
the  waters,  the  fire,  etc.  However  beautiful, 
lofty,  or  impressive  these  addresses  may  at 
times  be,  however  true  it  is  that  the  poet,  when 
writing-,  considered  the  god  he  addressed  as 
supreme  and  absolute,  losing  all  the  others 
from  sight ;  yet  the  gathering  of  these  different 
hymns  into  the  same  collection  produced  all  the 
effects  of  the  ordinary  polytheism  of  other  lands 
in  degrading  the  idea  of  God,  and  paving  the 
way  for  the  monstrous  excesses  of  idolatry. 
And  if,  on  some  occasions,  the  Hindu  poets 
rose  to  the  conception  of  a  Supreme  mind, 
transcending  all  other  minds,  it  was  yet  identi- 
fied with  nature;  so  that  the  whole  collection 
oscillates  perpetually  between  Polytheism  and 
Pantheism.  It  is  true,  that  sometimes  there 
are  ascriptions  of  praise  which  remind  one  of 
Biblical  utterances ;  as  when  it  is  said  of  Va- 
runa,  "Where  two  persons  sit  together,  he  is 
the  third."  "The  two  seas  (sky  and  ocean) 
are  Varuna's  loins  ;  he  is  also  contained  in  this 
drop  of  water."  "  He  counts  the  twinklings  of 
the  eyes  of  men."  "  As  a  player  throws  the 
dice,  he  settles  all  things."  "May  all  thy  fatal 
nooses  catch  the   man   who  tells  the  lie,  may 


62  THE  PSALTER. 

they  pass  by  him  who  tells  the  truth."  {Chips, 
I.,  41).  There  is,  too,  the  recognition  of  the 
power  and  will  of  the  gods  to  pardon  sin  :  "  Va- 
runa  is  merciful  even  to  him  who  has  commit- 
ted sin,"  (p.  40).  But  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
parison^ the  Veda  is  to  be  estimated  as  a  whole. 
To  take  selected  passages,  and  from  them  to 
infer  the  character  and  bearing  of  the  rest,  is  to 
fall  into  the  same  error  as  the  late  Mr.  Deutch, 
who  eathered  out  of  the  Talmud  a  number  of  its 
most  striking  things,  and  left  the  impression 
upon  his  readers,  that  these  fairly  represented 
the  immense  body  of  matter  contained  in  a 
number  of  folio  volumes — the  most  gigantic  ac- 
cumulation of  fable,  filth,  and  trash  the  world 
has  ever  seen. 

The  same  remark  is  to  be  made  concerning 
the  hymns  taken  from  the  Zend-Avesta,  the 
sacred  book  of  a  religion  justly  said  to  be,  of  all 
ethnic  faiths,  the  most  admirable  for  the  depth 
of  its  philosophy,  the  spirituality  of  its  views  and 
doctrines,  and  the  purity  of  its  morality.  The 
Zendic  Canon  is  made  up  of  several  separate 
portions  differing  in  age,  origin,  and  character. 
Hymns  of  praise  are  contained -in  all  these,  but 
the  most  interesting  portion  is  found  in  the  so- 
called  Gathas,  five  collections  of  religious  lyrics, 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD.  63 

each  collection  written  in  a  different  metre. 
The  doctrine  they  hold  respecting  God  is  un- 
doubtedly sublime  and  elevating.  There  is  no 
worship  of  nature,  no  bowing  to  images,  no 
identification  of  God  with  the  world  ;  but  on  the 
contrary,  a  distinct  recognition  of  one  self-exist- 
ent and  eternal  Being  who  is  the  Creator  of  all 
things.  "  I  invoke,"  says  the  Yacma,  "  Ahura 
Masda,  brilliant,  resplendent,  greatest  and  best. 
All-perfect,  all-powerful,  all-pure,  source  of  true 
knowledge,  of  real  happiness  ;  Him  who  created 
us.  Him  who  sustains  us,  wisest  of  all  intelli- 
gences." But  while  this  lofty  monotheism  in 
form  was  maintained,  while  Ahura  Masda  was 
held  to  be  the  creator  and  ruler  of  the  universe, 
and  the  author  of  all  good  ;  yet,  it  was  also 
held  that  there  were  other  sorts  of  beings  who 
formed  a  body  of  malevolent  and  harmful  pow- 
ers, and  from  whom  came  all  the  wickedness, 
impurity,  and  unhappiness  in  the  world.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  what  afterwards  became  a 
fully-developed  Dualism,  both  philosophical  and 
theological.  And  thus  I  account  for  a  coldness 
and  vagueness  which  marks  the  highest  utter- 
ances of  the  Zoroastrian  singers.  We  find  bright 
thoughts,  happy  sayings,  fine  descriptions,  but 
nothing  like  the  affectionate,  tender,  loving  con- 


64 


THE  PSALTER. 


fidence  which  breathes  through  the  Hebrew 
lyrics.  The  assurance  of  the  Psalmists  that 
Jehovah  was  absolutely  supreme  over  all  worlds, 
and  that  He  shared  His  dominion  in  no  degree, 
and  in  no  form,  with  any  other  beings,  was  so 
complete  and  thorough,  that  all  their  reverence 
and  all  their  hope  was  toward  Him.  They,  there- 
fore, adopt  a  tone  which,  even  in  the  highest 
flights  of  imagination,  or  in  the  widest  reach  of 
poetic  license,  never  loses  its  sense  of  complete 
and  all-absorbinof  devotion  to  the  Beino-  of 
whom  or  to  whom  they  sing.  While  they  fear- 
ed Him  as  they  feared  no  one  else,  they  loved 
Him  as  they  loved  no  one  else.  It  is  especially 
remarkable  how  they  familiarized  the  thought 
of  God  without  ever  in  the  least  deeradinof 
Him  in  their  apprehensions.  Some  modern 
Christians,  whose  sincerity  it  would  be  a  breach 
of  charity  to  question,  are  in  the  habit  of  speak- 
ing of,  and  to,  their  Maker  in  a  tone  which  is 
very  offensive  not  merely  to  a  cultivated  taste, 
but  to  a  truly  devout  soul.  It  lacks  reverence, 
modesty,  delicacy.  It  forgets  the  distance  be- 
tween heaven  and  earth,  and  treats  the  Infinite 
One  as  if  He  were  a  product  of  clay  like 
themselves.  .  No  approach  to  such  an  error  is 
found  in  the  Psalter.      Its  writers  bring  down 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD.  65 

the  Deity  quite  within  the  sphere  of  human 
affections,  but  never  impair  His  majesty.  In 
their  most  exulting  moments  they  are  always 
reverent,  and  the  object  of  their  hope,  and  trust, 
and  joy,  however  tenderly  and  affectionately 
addressed,  is  still  to  them  God — the  God  whose 
greatness  is  unsearchable,  and  whose  under- 
standing is  infinite. 

The  question,  then,  arises,  How  came  these 
Hebrews  to  get  and  retain  the  conception  of  one 
supreme,  personal  God,  infinitely  great,  yet  in- 
finitely condescending  ?  The  answer  given  by 
Mons.  Renan,  who,  however  we  may  repudiate 
his  philosophy,  is  anything  but  contemptible  as 
a  scholar,  is  that  the  whole  question  is  one  of 
race.  The  Semitic  family,  he  says,  had  the 
monotheistic  instinct,  and  this  accounts  for  their 
constant  faith  in  one  God  alone.  But  such  a 
theory  is  every  way  untenable.  For,  in  the 
first  place,  as  a  matter  of  fact  polytheism  is 
found  among  the  majority  of  the  Semitic  races. 
It  prevailed  in  the  Arabian  tribes,  in  Philistia 
and  Phoenicia,  and  in  Syria  and  Mesopotamia. 
Among  these,  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  planets, 
and  all  the  host  of  heaven,  as  well  as  other 
forces  of  nature,  were  deified  and  worshipped. 
It  is  only  in  one  branch  of  the  race  that  we  find 


66  THE  PSALTER. 

Monotheism  maintained.  Besides,  the  answer 
itself  needs  explanation.  The  instinct  of  the 
irrational  animals  we  understand  as  the  working 
of  the  nature  given  to  them,  but  how  can  men 
have  an  instinct  unless  implanted  by  their  Crea- 
tor ?  Moreover,  an  instinct  is  invariable.  How 
came  this  instinct,  if  such  it  were,  to  be  so  often 
utterly  denied  and  extirpated,  and  that,  not  for  a 
short  period,  but  for  generations  and  ages  ? 
But  the  whole  theory  is  baseless.  Its  consider- 
ation only  brings  out  more  broadly  the  point 
aimed  at  in  this  lecture.  All  over  the  ancient 
world  was  Polytheism  or  Dualism.  The 
Aryan  races  and  the  Semitic  races  alike  fell 
into  the  monstrous  error.  It  pervades  all  their 
literature,  whether  in  hieroglyph,  or  cuneiform, 
or  ordinary  script,  and  was  set  forth  in  pictures 
and  images.  But  there  is  one  exception,  only 
one,  i.  e.,  the  Hebrews.  And  here  it  is  found 
only  in  their  literature.  As  for  the  people  them- 
selves, they  displayed  a  constant  tendency  to  go 
after  other  gods — not  for  the  most  part  exchang- 
ing Jehovah  for  a  heathen  deity,  which  they  did 
only  in  the  days  of  Ahab  and  Jezebel,  but 
taking  this  deity  into  partnership  wath  Jehovah. 
This  disposition  runs  through  all  their  history 
from  the  days  of  Jacob  down  to  the  Captivity  in 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD.  6/ 

Babylon.  That  history  has  justly  been  said  "  to 
be  made  up  of  an  almost  uninterrupted  series  of 
relapses  into  polytheism."  And  yet  this  fact 
left  no  stamp  upon  their  poetry.  The  sacred 
singers  never  for  an  instant  give  way  to  the 
error,  or  even  assert  the  truth  in  a  wavering  or 
uncertain  manner.  In  the  height  of  joy,  one 
God  is  praised  ;  in  the  depth  of  gloom,  one  God 
is  supplicated.  Other  gods  are  mentioned  only 
to  be  disparaged  or  denied.  Nature  is  fre- 
quently and  grandly  described,  but  always  as 
the  creature  of  God.  The  events  of  the  past 
are  often  recounted,  but  never  as  results  of  des- 
tiny or  caprices  of  fortune,  but  as  the  manifested 
will  of  One  whose  throne  is  in  the  heavens,  and 
whose  kingdom  ruleth  over  all.  Whence  came 
this  remarkable  peculiarity  subsisting  through  a 
thousand  years  ?  Surely  not  from  the  efforts  of 
the  Jews  themselves,  their  grasp  of  intellect  or 
stretch  of  speculation.  Of  all  the  ancient  nations 
they  were  the  least  endowed  with  the  philo- 
sophic spirit.  Neither  their  language  nor  their 
character  fitted  them  for  the  minute  inquiries 
and  subtle  distinctions  which  abounded  among 
the  flower  of  the  Aryan  races.  And  yet  they 
held  fast  with  an  unyielding  grasp  a  truth  which 
eluded    the    laborious    culture    of  Athens    and 


68  THE  PSALTER. 

Alexandria.  But  in  fact  they  never  pretended 
that  their  idea  of  the  one  supreme  God  was  a 
discovery  of  their  own.  "  He  made  known 
His  ways  unto  Moses,  His  acts  unto  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel."  The  historical  Psalms  go  back 
to  Abraham  (cv.  6)  as  the  head  of  the  race,  and 
refer  all  the  distinctions  of  the  people  to  the  reve- 
lation made  to  him  and  his  successors.  This,  I 
say,  is  their  account  of  the  origin  of  their  knowl- 
edge of  God,  and  it  is  the  only  account  which 
fully  meets  the  requirements  of  the  case.  God 
Himself  seofreeated  this  race  from  the  children 
of  men,  and  made  them  the  depositories  of  His 
truth,  confirming  and  upholding  the  original 
disclosure  by  continual  subsequent  communica- 
tions, from  time  to  time,  and  thus  guarding 
against  the  corruptions  to  which  all  human  in- 
stitutions are  liable.  Only  in  this  way  can  we 
explain  the  marvellous  purity,  and  beauty,  and 
consistency  of  the  doctrine  of  God  set  forth  in 
the  old  Hebrew  Psalms.  Beyond  all  question 
these  Psalms  are  human,  but  equally  beyond 
question  are  they  Divine.  The  brightest  gem 
in  the  whole  range  of  addresses  to  the  Gods, 
found  in  Greek  literature,  is  the  Hymn  of  the 
Stoic  Cleanthes,  addressed  to  Jupiter,  which 
does    really    contain    some    fine    thoughts    and 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD. 


69 


sounding  phrases.  But  the  entire  hymn  is  a 
splendid  illusion.  "  Stoic  dogma  empties  Stoic 
hymnology  of  half  its  sublimity  and  more  than 
half  its  devoutness."  The  Father  in  heaven 
whom  Cleanthes  praises,  and  to  whom  he  prays, 
is  not  a  personal  Being,  all-righteous  and  all- 
holy,  whose  loving  care  may  be  aptly  symbolized 
by  the  tenderness  of  an  earthly  parent,  but  is 
only  another  name  for  nature,  for  necessity,  for 
fate,  for  the  universe.  The  stately  words  which 
the  writer  uses  are  employed  only  in  a  forced 
and  unnatural  sense.  But  the  Psalmists  always 
mean  just  what  they  say,  or  if  there  is  any  dif- 
ference, it  is  because  words  can  not  express  the 
fulness  and  vigor  of  their  thought.  In  no  case 
do  they  use  language  transcending  their  own 
feelings  and  conceptions.  And  there  are  scores 
of  these  sacred  songs  as  much  superior  to  Cle- 
anthes' Hymn  as  this  is  to  the  Minor  Homeric 
Poems.  How  is  it  that  the  singers  of  an  obscure 
and  despised  nation,  whom  the  classic  races 
stigmatized  as  barbarous,  and  who,  in  the  arts 
of  life,  in  all  the  mental  and  social  habits  which 
lead  to  depth  and  breadth  of  thought,  or  to  the 
sense  and  creation  ot  beauty,  zvere  barbarous  in 
the  comparison,  yet  produced  the  only  concep- 
tion of  God  which,  by  the  general  consent  of 


70 


THE  PSALTER. 


the  wise  and  good,  is  pronounced  to  be  just, 
and  true,  and  satisfying?  The  people  were  mer- 
ciless and  bloody ;  they  were  constantly  prone 
to  the  coarsest  irreligion  and  profligacy,  yet 
their  sacred  singers  express  thoughts  about  God 
which  have  been  welcomed  and  adopted  by  the 
gentlest,  the  most  refined,  and  the  most  saintly 
spirits  whom  the  world  has  ever  seen.  How  is 
this  to  be  accounted  for  ?  No  answer  can  be 
given  which  does  not  affirm  a  divine  guidance 
which  controlled  thought,  and  tongue,  and  pen. 


LECTURE    III. 

THE    DOCTRINE    OF    MAN    IN    THE    PSALTER. 


LECTURE  III. 


THE     DOCTRINE     OF     MAN. 

man's  origin  and  place  in  nature — EIGHTH  PSALM — 
HIS  MORAL  CORRUPTION — THIS  UNKNOWN  TO  OTHER 
SINGERS  —  THE  REASON  OF  THE  FACT  —  THE  PSALTER 
PRAISES  GOD  AND  NOT  MAN  —  NO  MYTHICAL  IDEALS  OF 
HUMANITY  —  NO  PESSIMISM — LOFTY  FAITH  IN  GOD  AND 
ATTACHMENT  TO  HIM — NO  CLANNISHNESS — HOPE  FOR  THE 
WORLD — THIS  NOW  A  COMMON  PLACE,  NOT  SO  THEN  — 
CONCLUSION. 

IN  the  last  lecture  the  subject  was  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Psalter  respecting  God,  His  nature 
and  attributes,  and  His  relations  to  men.  This 
point  naturally  came  first,  because  it  is  first — be- 
ing the  pivot  upon  which  all  other  truths  turn. 
But  next  to  the  question  of  God,  comes  that  of 
man.  How  is  he  regarded  as  to  his  position  in 
the  world — his  origin,  his  character,  his  duty,  and 
his  destiny.  This  constitutes  the  other  factor 
in  any  scheme  of  religious  thought,  and  is 
worthy  of  the  most  attentive  consideration. 
What,  then,  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Psalms  on 
this  point?  Is  it  like  that  of  other  religious 
systems  ?      Does  it  start  on    the    same  plane 

4  (73) 


74 


THE  PSALTER. 


and  arrive  at  the  same  end  ?  or  does  it  differ 
widely,  and  if  so,  how  shall  we  account  for  the 
difference  ? 

The  first  inquiry  respects  man's  origin  and 
his  place  in  creation.  The  general  doctrine  of 
antiquity  on  this  subject  was  that  man  is  a  spon- 
taneous production  of  the  earth,  since  almost 
all  philosophers  held  that  matter  was  eternal, 
on  the  ground  ex  nihilo  nihil  Jit — the  idea  of 
creation  seeming  to  them  unphilosophical  and 
incredible.  The  earth  was  assumed  to  be  preg- 
nant with  the  germs  of  all  living  organisms, 
which  were  quickened  into  life  under  favorable 
circumstances.  Hence  the  great  boast  of  the 
Athenians  was  that  they  were  not  derived  from 
any  other  existing  race,  but  avTOKOoveg,  sprung 
from  the  soil.  It  is  true,  we  have  what  seems  a 
contrary  doctrine  in  the  statement  quoted  by 
Paul  in  his  address  on  Mars'  Hill  at  Athens, 
Tov  yap  Kol  ytvog  eofitv,  whether  we  suppose  this 
fine  utterance  taken  from  Aratus  of  Cilicia, 
(270  B.C.)  or  from  the  famous  hymn  of  Clean- 
thes,  the  Stoic.  But  these  were  mere 
sporadic  utterances,  and  besides  were  rather 
used  to  show  that  God  was  like  to  man  than 
that  man  was  like  to  God.  The  former  view 
being   the    prolific    parent    of  idolatry    in    its 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF' MAN. 


75 


grossest  forms,  while  the  latter,  as  handled  by 
the  great  Apostle,  furnishes  the  most  emphatic 
protest  against  such  a  degrading  habit. 

In  the  Psalms,  on  the  contrary,  the  position 
long  before  taken  in  Genesis — that  man  was 
made,  and  that  he  was  made  in  the  image  of 
God — is  everywhere  assumed,  and  sometimes 
explicitly  formulated  and  poetically  developed. 
As  in  the  looth  Psalm,  "Know  ye  that  the 
Lord  He  is  God :  it  is  He  that  hath  made  us 
and  not  we  ourselves  :  we  are  His  people  and 
the  sheep  of  His  pasture."  Still  more  vividly 
is  this  set  forth  in  the  8th  Psalm,  where  David 
gives  feeling  expression  to  the  insignificance  of 
man  in  the  presence  of  the  vastness,  the  splen- 
dor, the  mysterious  depth  and  the  boundless 
glory  of  the  heavens,  as  seen  at  night. — 

When  I  see  Thy  heavens,  the  work  of  Thy  fingers, 
The  moon  and  the  stars  which  Thou  hast  ordained  ; 
What  is  man,  that  Thou  art  mindful  of  him, 
And  the  son  of  man,  that  Thou  visitest  him  ? 

As  Dr.  Whewell  says,  "  The  vault  of  the 
sky  arched  at  a  vast  and  unknown  distance  over 
our  heads  ;  the  stars  apparently  infinite  in  num- 
ber, each  keeping  its  appointed  course  and 
place,  and  seeming  to  belong  to  a  wide  system 


yd  '  'THE  PSALTER. 

which  has  no  relation  to  the  earth  ;  while  man  is 
but  one  among  many  millions  of  the  earth's  in- 
habitants, all  this  makes  the  contemplative  spec- 
tator feel  how  exceeding  small  a  portion  of  the 
universe  he  is  ;  how  little  he  must  be  in  the 
eyes  of  an  Intelligence  which  can  embrace  the 
whole."  And  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether 
the  brilliant  discoveries  of  modern  astronomy 
cause  the  view  of  the  nightly  heavens  to  make 
any  deeper  impression  upon  a  modern  spectator 
than  it  did  upon  the  sweet  singer  of  Israel  ages 
ago.  Even  we  can  hardly  say  with  more  emo- 
tion than  David,  What  is  man  in  the  sight  of 
Him  who  made  those  heavens,  and  in  them 
planted  those  glittering  orbs  ?  But  no  sooner 
does  the  poet  give  utterance  to  the  thought  of 
man's  insignificance  on  this  side  of  the  subject, 
than  he  turns  to  set  forth  on  the  other,  his  won- 
drous greatness  —  in  nature  almost  divine, 
crowned  and  sceptered  as  a  king,  wielding  a 
dominion  over  air  and  earth,  and  seas  —  all 
things  put  under  his  feet.  The  first  theme  of 
the  lyric  is  the  manifested  excellence  of  the 
Creator,  so  conspicuously  displayed  in  all  the 
earth,  and  in  the  heavens  above  the  earth,  as  to 
attract  the  admiration  of  children,  and  even 
sucklings.     But   the  second    is    the   dignity  of 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN.',  yy 

man,  made  by  the  favor  of  God  to  be  the  head 
of  creation,  animate  and  inanimate.  Little  as 
he  is  in  one  sense,  in  another  he  is  inexpressi- 
bly great — nothing  less  than  a  sovereign  ruler 
like  his  Maker  and  Lord.  Thus  was  anticipated 
in  the  old  Hebrew  song,  the  fine  thought  of 
Pascal — "  Man  is  but  a  reed,  the  weakest  in 
nature,  but  he  is  a  thinking  reed.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  the  entire  universe  arm  itself  to 
crush  him.  A  breath  of  air,  a  drop  of  water, 
suffices  to  kill  him.  But  were  the  universe  to 
crush  him,  man  would  be  still  more  noble  than 
that  which  kills  him,  because  he  knows  that  he 
dies ;  and  the  universe  knows  nothing  of  the 
advantage  it  has  over  him." 

But  while  the  Psalms  wholly  ignore  all  theo- 
ries of  man  as  an  emanation  or  a  development, 
and  set  him  on  the  pinnacle  of  the  earth  as  a 
creature  bearing  the  lineament  of  the  divine 
handiwork  ;  yet  on  the  other  hand  they  are  far 
from  affirming  that  his  moral  character  is  in 
accordance  with  his  origin  and  his  place  in 
nature.  Nay,  they  declare  just  the  reverse. 
In  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  the  Apostle  sets 
forth  his  grand  indictment  against  the  race — 
that  Jews  and  Gentiles  are  all  alike  under  sin 
— and  then   rivets   his  conclusion  by   citations 


78  THE  PSAL  TER. 

from  Scripture — "  it  is  written,"  giving  a  cento 
of  six  different  passages.  Four  of  these  are 
from  the  Psalter.  It  will  suffice  to  quote  the 
rnost  striking  of  them — the  opening  of  the  14th 
Psalm,  which  is  also  the  same  as  that  of  the 
53d — a  case  of  repetition  or  retractatio,  which 
is  well  justified  by  the  importance  of  the  theme, 
and  the  indisposition  of  men  to  receive  it. 

The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart,  There  is  no  God. 

They  are  corrupt,  they  have  done  abominable  works. 

There  is  none  that  doeth  good. 

The  Lord  looked  down  from  heaven  upon  the  children  of  men, 

To  see  if  there  be  any  that  understand. 

That  seek  after  God. 

They  are  all  gone  aside,  they  are  together  become  filthy, 

There  is  none  that  doeth  good,  no,  not  one. 

The  Psalmist,  doubtless,  had  an  historical 
occasion  for  this  utterance,  although  we  can  not 
determine  what  it  was.  But  rising  above  any 
particular  circumstances,  he  surveys  the  whole 
race  and  brands  it  with  a  fatal  apostasy.  Even 
the  eye  of  the  Omniscient,  looking  down  from 
the  height  of  heaven,  fails  to  discern  a  single 
sinless  person.  Well  says  Ewald,  "  It  would 
scarcely  be  possible  for  a  great  truth  to  be 
sketched  in  fewer  or  more  striking  outlines." 
Yet  the  subject  is  not  always  treated  in  this 
objective  way.     Generally,  it  comes  out,  as  we 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN. 


79 


should  expect  in  lyrics,  as  a  matter  of  experi- 
ence. There  is  no  reference  in  all  the  Psalter 
to  the  origin  of  evil,  or  to  our  connection  with 
the  head  of  the  race.  But  the  deep  doctrine  of 
depravity,  as  hereditary,  inborn,  and  all-pervad- 
ing, is  distinctly  set  forth.  In  Psalm  Iviii.  3, 
David  traces  the  corruption  of  his  times  back 
to  original  sin,  to  an  evil  germ  infecting  the 
nature  even  from  birth.  **  The  wicked  are  es- 
tranged from  the  womb :  they  go  astray  as 
soon  as  they  be  born,  speaking  lies."  Still 
more  affectingly  is  the  same  assertion  made  by 
him  in  regard  to  himself  in  Psalm  li.  5,  when 
bewailing  the  great  transgression  of  his  life. 
Not  content  with  acknowledging  his  actual 
misdeeds,  he  goes  back  to  the  fountain  from 
which  they  sprang — a  corrupt  nature.  "  Behold, 
I  was  shapen  in  iniquity,  and  in  sin  did  my 
mother  conceive  me."  This  is  not  said  in  ex- 
tenuation of  his  conduct,  but  in  aggravation  of 
it — not  as  casting  blame  upon  his  mother — the 
shocking  hypothesis  which  some  writers  have 
allowed  themselves  to  frame — but  as  affirming 
that  the  poison  of  sin,  instead  of  being  restric-ed 
to  particular  wrong  acts,  however  many  or 
gross,  went  down  to  the  roots  of  his  beings  and 
affected  the  whole  life  and  character.     Not  that 


8o  THE  PSAL  TER. 

this  took  away  guilt  as  if  sin  were  an  involun- 
tary thing,  for  man's  responsibility  is  constantly 
assumed — being  given  in  this  very  Psalm  as 
clearly  as  it  is  in  every  human  consciousness. 
Need  I  recite  other  touching  utterances, — 

If  thou,  Lord,  shouldst  mark  iniquities, 
O  Lord,  who  should  stand  ? — (cxxx.) 

Or  again, — 

Enter  not  into  judginent  with  thy  ser\^ant, 

For  in  thy  sight  shall  no  man  living  be  justified. — (cxiiii.) 

All,  all  need  His  pardoning  mercy,  and  this  not 
only  for  known,  but  unknown  sins.  "  Who  can 
discern  His  errors  ?  Cleanse  Thou  me  from 
secret  faults."  These  sayings  are  not  due  to 
poetic  license  or  rhetorical  exaggeration,  but 
are  the  true  utterances  of  a  deep  and  real  feel- 
ing. And  as  such  they  stand  alone  in  litera- 
ture. Nowhere  in  the  sacred  anthology  of 
Rome,  Greece,  Assyria,  Persia,  Hindustan,  or 
China,  do  we  find  any  equivalent  to  it.  Not 
that  these  peoples  were  ignorant  of  the  fact  of 
human  depravity  and  of  its  extent.  How  could 
they  be  ?  What  they  saw  within  and  around 
them,  and  all  the  records  of  the  past,  compelled 
them  to  feel  and  acknowledge  that  human 
nature  was  in  a  sad,  disjointed  condition.     Phi- 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN.  8 1 

losophers  could  find  no  explanation  of  the  uni- 
versal fact  save  in  the  idea  of  a  general  rooted 
depravity  of  the  race.  And  many  a  poet  has, 
like  Ovid,  deplored  the  inward  conflict  between 
inclination  and  conscience — the  clear  percep- 
tion of  what  is  right,  and  yet  the  determined 
following  of  what  is  wrong.  But  all  these  ut- 
terances were  more  matters  of  speculation  than 
of  emotion.  They  were  not  so  held  by  men  as 
to  shape  their  religious  convictions,  or  to  gov- 
ern their  worship  or  their  lives.  The  nearest 
approach  I  have  seen  to  the  Scripture  utter- 
ance is  in  some  of  the  Hindu  hymns,  of  which 
the  following  is  a  specimen  : 

"  I  am  sin,  I  commit  sin,  my  nature  is  sinful,  and  I  am  conceived 

in  sin. 
Save  me,  O  thou  lotus-eyed,  O  Hari,  who  removest  all  sin." 

These  words  have  a  very  orthodox  sound, 
and,  being  the  daily  prayer  of  the  Brahmans, 
while  performing  their  religious  ablutions, 
have  often  been  quoted  to  them  by  Chris- 
tian missionaries  as  asserting  the  great  truth 
which  renders  the  sacrifice  of  the  Cross 
so  needful  and  so  precious.  But  neither  did 
the  ancient  authors  of  this  prayer,  nor  do  those 
who  incessantly  repeat  it  now,  mean  by  its 
words  what  it  seems  to  us  to  say.     Their  phi- 


82  THE  PSAL  TER. 

losophy  attributes  all  the  pain,  the  unsatisfied 
desire,  the  gloom  and  misery  of  human  life,  to 
the  connection  of  soul  with  nature.  The  spirit 
is  in  bondage  to  matter,  and  the  only  prospect 
of  emancipation  lies  in  an  enormous  series  of 
successive  transmigrations  until  at  last  it  passes 
into  the  Supreme  source — that  is,  God.  It  is 
easy  to  see  that  in  this  view  the  most  complete 
and  exhaustive  confessions  of  sinfulness  have  a 
very  different  meaning  from  that  which  the 
same  words  express  when  used  by  believers  in 
the  Bible.  The  moral  corruption  which  the 
Hindu  bewails  is  not  the  consequence  of  his  own 
act,  or  that  of  his  legal  representative,  but  of 
dispositions  originating  in  the  first  construction 
of  the  body  from  the  subtle  elements  of  nature. 
It  is,  of  course,  impossible  that  the  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility should  be  keen,  or  the  reproaches 
of  conscience  severe.  Nor  is  it  surprising  that 
men  should  come  to  believe  that  the  sin  which 
owes  its  being  to  the  body  is  removed  by  mere 
bodily  or  external  observances.  A  chief  feature 
of  the  every-day  worship  of  all  Brahmans  is  to 
bathe  in  one  of  the  sacred  rivers,  and  while  in 
the  act,  to  repeat  the  prayer  above  cited.  Their 
worship  and  their  lives  show  that  they  have  no 
proper  conception  of  inbred  corruption  as  this 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN.  83 

is  felt  by  Christians.  Their  confessions,  so  mor- 
tifying in  terms,  are  made  without  either  shame 
or  sorrow — indeed  for  the  most  part  repeated 
merely  as  a  matter  of  form.  As  Dean  Church  re- 
marks, {Early  Sacred  Poeiry,  p.  30),  "Though 
in  these  ancient  hymns  sin  is  confessed  and  its 
consequences  deprecated,  though  they  praise 
the  righteous  and  denounce  the  deceitful  and 
the  wicked,  there  is  but  little  to  show  what  was 
the  sin,  and  what  constituted  the  righteousness. 
Of  that  moral  conviction,  that  moral  enthusiasm 
for  goodness  and  justice,  that  moral  hatred  of 
wrong  and  evil,  that  zeal  for  righteousness, 
that  anguish  of  penitence  which  has  elsewhere 
marked  religious  poetry,  there  is  singularly  lit- 
tle trace." 

It  may,  then,  be  fairly  affirmed  that  the  ethnic 
faiths  scarcely  understood  the  strict  idea  of  sin 
as  an  offence  against  God.  They  had  no  ink- 
ling of  that  view  of  the  Divine  Holiness  which 
pervades  the  Scriptures,  and  which  was  con- 
tinually and  strongly  represented  in  a  tangible 
shape  to  Israel,  alike  by  the  minute  and  painful 
symbolism  of  the  ceremonial  institute ;  by  the 
stern  and  unbending  enactments  of  the  moral 
law ;  and  by  the  actual  and  repeated  judgments 
God    sent    both    upon  them   and   upon   their 


84 


THE  PSALTER. 


heathen  neighbors  in  upholding  the  Law.  Even 
in    the    master-pieces    of  Greek  Tragedy,  the 
Nemesis  is  not  so  much  the  result  of  the  delib- 
erate purpose  of  a  supreme  divine  person   as 
the  acting  of  a  blind  unconscious  Fate  to  which 
gods  and  men  are  alike  subject.     There  is  a 
plenty  of  pathos,  of  terror,  of  wrong-doing,  and 
of  ultimate  suffering,  but  never  once  the  spirit- 
ual conception  of  sin  as  a  disease  of  the  moral 
nature  needing  both  pardon  and  renovation  in 
order  to  free  the  conscience  from  its  load.     And 
why?     How  comes  it  that  the  varied  and  cul- 
tivated races  with  an  ancestral  faith,   with  an 
elaborate  cultus,  and  with  a  very  striking  men- 
tal development,  never,  save   in  very  rare  in- 
stances, looked   deep    enough    into    their  own 
hearts  to  see  what  was  there,  while  these  He- 
brew singers  had  such  a  vivid  conception  of  the 
truth,   and  expressed  it  with  such  feeling  and 
power,  and  never  set  forth  any  statements  of 
an  opposite  kind?     It  is  no  answer  to  ascribe 
this  effect  to  the  moral  earnestness  of  the  He- 
brew race.     For  first,  the  other  races  had  as 
much  earnestness,  only  they  showed  it  in  a  dif- 
ferent  way.     When    did   any  people    fall  into 
such  a  paroxysm  of  dismay,  terror,  and  wrath, 
as  the  Athenians  at  the  mutilation  of  the  Her- 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN.  85 

mse  ;  or  as  the  Egyptians, when  Cambyses  mock- 
ed at  their  sacred  customs  ?  What  people 
could  be  more  earnest  in  their  religion  than 
those  Syrian  tribes  who  made  their  children 
pass  through  the  fire  to  Moloch  ?  But,  sec- 
ondly, if  they  did  not  have  it,  it  remains  to  be 
explained  how  the  Hebrews  alone  came  to  be 
in  possession  of  it.  The  only  possible  solution 
is,  I  submit,  to  be  found  in  the  direct  and  spe- 
cific divine  revelation  which  they  enjoyed,  and 
which,  by  furnishing  the  pure  and  lofty  stan- 
dard of  duty,  enabled  men  to  ascertain  exactly 
their  deviations  from  it. 

This  view  of  human  nature  gave  rise  to 
another  peculiarity  by  which  the  Hebrew  Lyrics 
are  distinguished,  viz.  :  that  their  praise  is 
always  of  God  or  of  God's  works,  and  never  of 
man.  The  earlier  history  of  the  race  abounds 
with  men  of  remarkable  character  :  the  innocent 
Abel ;  the  unworldly  Enoch  ;  the  faithful  Noah  ; 
the  mysterious  Melchizedek ;  Abraham,  the 
friend  of  God  ;  the  contemplative  Isaac  ;  Jacob, 
the  wrestler  and  prince  ;  Joseph  with  his  diversi- 
fied and  romantic  history  ;  Moses,  the  law-giver, 
with  his  wondrous  career  from  the  bulrushes  of 
the  Nile  to  the  lonely  summits  of  Nebo  ;  Aaron, 
the  head  of  the  oldest  priesthood  in  the  world ; 


86  THE  PSAL  TER. 

Joshua,  the  great  captain  ;  Jephthah  and  Gideon, 
the  mighty  men  of  valor  ;  and  Samuel,  last  of  the 
judges  and  first  of  the  prophets.  These  names 
were  rooted  in  the  hearts  and  the  memories  of 
their  countrymen,  and  all  regarded  them  with  a 
glow  of  national  pride. 

Why  do  not  these  appear  in  the  song- 
book  of  the  nation  ?  Why  do  we  not  find  some 
encomiastic,  or  triumphal,  or  elegiac  odes  in 
honor  of  these  distinguished  men  ?  Why  in  all 
the  Psalter  is  there  nothing  in  this  respect  even 
approaching  the  sublime  odes  in  which  Pindar 
immortalized  the  victors  at  the  great  games  of 
Greece  ?  That  the  fact  is  as  I  have  stated,  is 
indisputable.  There  is  not  a  psalm  of  praise  in 
the  entire  collection  which  has  for  its  chief,  or 
even  its  subordinate,  subject,  the  exploits  of  any 
man  or  set  of  men.  The  spirit  of  the  whole  is 
faithfully  expressed  by  the  opening  words  of  the 
115th  Psalm,  "Not  unto  us,  O  Lord,  not  unto 
us,  but  unto  Thy  name  give  glory,  for  Thy  mercy, 
for  Thy  truth."  It  may,  perhaps,  be  said  that 
all  poems  of  this  kind  were  recorded  in  the  book 
of  Jasher,  or  of  the  Upright,  which  is  mentioned 
in  Joshua  x.  13,  and  2  Samuel  i.  18,  and  of 
which  nothing  is  certainly  known,  although  for 
ages  its  precise    nature  has    been   a  theme  of 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN. 


87 


laborious  disputation.  To  me  the  opinion  of 
Lowth  appears  most  probable — that  it  was  a 
collection  of  national  songs,  celebrating  either 
the  civil  or  the  military  exploits  of  the  great 
men  of  the  past.  But  admitting  this  to  be  the 
fact  in  the  case,  the  question  at  issue  is  pushed 
only  a  step  farther  back.  For  supposing  these 
two  collections  to  be  growing  up  side  by  side, 
how  came  it  to  pass  that  the  secular  never  even 
by  chance  invaded  the  sacred,  but  the  line  of 
demarkation  was  kept  distinct  from  beginning 
to  end  ?  And  why  was  it  that  the  one  perished 
so  entirely  that  we  know  not  of  its  existence  at 
all,  except  by  two  slight  references  in  the  canoni- 
cal Scriptures,  while  the  other  was  at  once  taken 
into  the  canon,  and  has  so  remained  for  aees 
an  integral  part  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  ? 
Certainly  this  is  not  the  ordinary  course  of 
events.  Pride  of  ancestry  and  pride  of  race  are 
universal  features  of  human  nature.  We  find 
them  in  all  modern,  in  all  ancient  literatures — in 
the  lyrics  of  Greece  and  Rome,  in  the  hymns  of 
the  Veda,  in  the  GAthas  of  the  Avestan,  in  the 
cuneiform  inscriptions  of  Chaldea  and  Assyria. 
If,  then,  the  book  of  Jasher  was  what  it  is  com- 
monly supposed  to  be,  it  only  makes  the  case 
stronger.     The  Hebrews  did  not  omit  to  pre- 


88  THE  PSALTER. 

serve  songs  in  praise  of  illustrious  men,  because 
they  had  none  of  that  class ;  but  on   the   con- 
trary, having  them  and  enough  of  them  to  make 
a  "  book,"  they  yet  refused  to  mingle  them  with 
the  songs  of  Zion,  and  kept  their  sacred  anthol- 
ogy pure  from  even  the  least  taint  of  hero  wor- 
ship, or  saint  worship.     This  is  clearly  estab- 
lished by  one  signal  case.     On  the  death  of  Saul 
and  Jonathan,  David  composed  one  of  the  most 
exquisite  elegies  of  any  age  or  land.     It  is  re- 
corded in  the  second  book  of  Samuel  (i.  17-27) 
as  part  of  the  annals  of  the  time,  and  as  useful 
in  many  directions.     But  it  was  not  put  into  the 
Psalter,  it  was  not  inscribed  "  To  the  chief  musi- 
cian."    Neither  its  author,  nor  its  subject,  nor 
its  occasion,  nor  its  inherent  beauties  of  thought 
and  expression,  could  gain  for  it  admission  into 
that  collection  whose  title  is  Thehillijn — Praises, 
the  Praises  of  God.     Nor  may  it  be  said  that 
there    were    not    in    Jewish    history  events   or 
scenes   sufficiently  striking  to  be  embalmed  in 
poetic  numbers.     The  record  proves  the  con- 
trary   abundantly.     The  material  existed,    but 
some  unseen  force  hindered  the   singers  from 
using  it  in  any  such  way  as  would   turn   men's 
thoughts  from  their  Maker's  honor  to  the  glori- 
fication of  mere  men,  as  may  be  seen  by  com- 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAiV.  89 

paring  the  treatment  of  a  celebrated  modern 
feat  of  arms  with  that  of  a  similar  one  of  old. 
The  brilliant  exploit  of  the  British  cavalry  at 
Balaklava  has  been  worthily  perpetuated  in 
Tennyson's  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,  and 
multitudes  who  otherwise  might  never  have 
heard  of  the  brave  deed,  will  know  it  well  from 
the  poet's  striking  lyric.  But  the  three  captains 
who  broke  through  the^garrison  at  the  well  of 
Bethlehem  did  quite  as  glorious  an  enterprise 
in  snatching  at  the  risk  of  life  a  cup  of  water  for 
David,  and  their  self-sacrifice  was  even  sur- 
passed by  the  generous  devotion  of  their  leader, 
but  not  the  remotest  allusion  to  it  occurs  in  the 
Psalter. 

Still  further,  not  only  is  there  no  attempt  at 
the  glorification  of  real  personages  in  the  na- 
tional history,  but  no  appearance  of  an  effort 
after  an  ideal  of  humanity,  a  mystic  conception 
of  what  is  greatest  and  best  according  to  earthly 
standards.  Among  every  cultivated  people  it 
has  been  a  favorite  object  of  men  of  genius  to 
give  expression  to  some  faultless  model  of  the 
race,  to  paint  a  perfect  picture  of  godlike  virtue, 
wisdom,  courage,  self-control,  and  endurance, 
and  to  hold  this  up  for  imitation  and  admiration. 
In  all  such  poems  it  is  required  that  they  be 


go 


THE  PSALTER. 


true  to  human  nature  generically,  but  not  in  de- 
tail. They  borrow  indeed  from  actual  history,  but 
they  add  and  omit,  and  expand  and  diversify, 
until  they  have  finally  created  their  ideal  char- 
acter. But  however  skilfully  drawn,  whatever 
excellence  the  work  has  in  tone,  style,  and  struc- 
ture, it  is  only  a  romance.  It  may  have  the 
highest  possible  verisimilitude,  but  still  no  ob- 
jective truth.  "  No  such  embodiment  of  the 
Ideal  has  ever  broken  in  upon  the  vulgar  real- 
ities of  human  existence.  There  have  been 
good  men,  and  brave  men,  and  wise  men,  often  ; 
but  there  have  been  no  living  sculptures  after 
the  fashion  of  Phidias,  no  heroes  after  the 
manner  of  Homer  and  Virgil."  Nothing  of  this 
kind  appears  in  the  Psalter.  It  is  as  free  from 
any  imaginary  or  mythical  heroes  as  from  any 
that  are  historical.  Its  whole  atmosphere  is 
that  of  literal  truth — reciting  of  men,  even  the 
best  of  men,  their  shame  as  well  as  their  glory, 
their  sins,  and  falls,  and  infirmities  as  well  as 
their  faith,  and  heroism,  and  devotion.  The 
only  apparent  exception  to  this  uniformity  is  the 
reference  to  one  described  sometimes  as  a  king, 
at  others  as  a  prophet,  who  is  indeed  set  forth 
as  invested  with  every  possible  excellence. 
But  this  is  not  a  real  exception.     For  although 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN.  gi 

a  certain  school  of  Rationalists  have  endeavored 
to  account  for  these  passages,  and  others  in  the 
rest  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  representing  an 
ideal  Christ,  an  earth-born  conception  of  men 
dissatisfied  with  what  they  saw  around  them, 
and  therefore  striving  to  give  a  concrete  picture 
of  what  they  hoped  would  be  developed  in  the 
progress  of  society,  the  attempt  has  signally 
failed.  The  theory  is  totally  inadequate  to  an- 
swer its  purpose,  as  might  be  easily  shown  were 
there  time.  And  the  old  view  remains  impreg- 
nably  established — that  this  lyric  hero,  so  far 
from  being  of  human  invention,  is  of  divine  sug- 
gestion. He  is  the  great  hope  of  Israel,  a  real 
personage  who  in  the  fulness  of  time  should 
appear  to  bridge  the  chasm  between  heaven 
and  earth  by  a  wondrous  Incarnation.  Upon 
the  glories  of  this  Being  the  sacred  singers  ex- 
haust all  their  stores.  But  the  bright  portraiture 
they  give  of  Him  only  displays  the  more  clearly 
their  absolute  restraint  from  any  degree  or  form 
of  panegyric  upon  a  mere  man. 

But  while  the  Psalms  are  free  from  all  secular, 
eulogistic  songs  in  praise  of  individuals,  and 
while  they  freely  speak  of  the  whole  race  as  in 
a  lost  and  sinful  condition,  they  are  far  from  any 
pessimistic  extravagance.     There  is  none  of  the 


92  THE  PSALTER. 

hopelessness  of  heathenism  or  mere  nature. 
Men  have  gone  astray,  but  they  may  be  re- 
covered. They  are  burdened  with  guilt,  but 
that  burden  may  be  shifted.  They  are  banished 
from  God,  yet  they  may  be  brought  back  to  His 
fellowship.  For  along  with  the  clearest  state- 
ments of  human  sin,  we  have  similar  statements 
of  the  divine  mercy.  "The  Lord  is  merciful 
and  gracious,  slow  to  anger  and  plenteous  in 
kindness.  He  will  not  always  chide,  neither 
keep  His  anger  forever."  In  consequence  of 
this,  penitents  have  hope.  And  it  is  these  re- 
peated, express,  and  emphatic  affirmations  of 
the  divine  compassion  which  distinguish  th^ 
Psalms  from  the  Vedas  and  the  Avestan.  What 
in  the  latter  is  set  forth  vaguely,  rarely,  and 
hesitatingly,  in  the  former  is  triumphantly  as- 
sumed and  made  the  basis  of  prayer  and  assur- 
ance. A  conspicuous  instance  is  seen  in  the 
103d   Psalm  : 

He  hath  not  dealt  with  us  after  our  sins. 

Nor  rewarded  us  according  to  our  iniquities. 

For  as  the  heaven  is  high  above  the  earth, 

So  great  is  His  mercy  toward  them  that  fear  Him. 

As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west. 

So  far  hath  He  removed  our  transgressions  from  us. 

Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children, 

So  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  Him. 

For  He  knoweth  our  frame  ; 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN. 


93 


He  remembereth  that  we  are  dust. 
For  the  wind  passeth  over  it,  and  it  is  gone. 
And  the  place  thereof  shall  know  it  no  more ; 
But  the  mercy  of  the  Lord  is  from  everlasting  to  everlast- 
ing upon  them  that  fear  Him, 
And  His  righteousness  unto  children's  children. 

In  consequence  of  such  utterances  as  these, 
the  singers  of  old,  without  having  the  full- 
orbed  doctrine  of  atonement  as  it  lies  in  the 
New  Testament,  were  able  to  apprehend  God 
as  gracious  and  forgiving,  and  yet  to  feel  His 
grace,  not  as  a  license  to  sin,  but  as  a  fresh  bond 
to  duty.  As  one  of  them  said,  "There  is  for- 
giveness with  Thee  that  Thou  mayest  be  fear- 
ed." The  forgiveness  takes  away  the  estrange- 
ment wrought  by  sin,  and  the  soul  comes  back 
to  its  old  place  as  a  child  of  God  and  a  sharer  in 
His  image.  It  loves  Him,  it  serves  Him,  it 
enjoys  Him.  His  statutes  are  more  precious 
than  gold,  sweeter  than  the  honey-comb.  It 
meditates  therein  by  day  and  by  night.  Its 
cry  is,  "  Because  thou  hast  been  my  help,  there- 
fore in  the  shadow  of  Thy  wings  will  I  rejoice." 
"  How  precious  also  are  Thy  thoughts  unto  me, 

0  God  ?     How  great  is  the  sum  of  them  !     If 

1  should  count  them,  they  are  more  in  number 
than  the  sand  ;  when  I  awake,  I  am  still  with 
Thee." 


94 


THE  PSALTER. 


Now,  this  is  a  phase  of  experience  to  which 
all  ancient  literature  has  nothing  that  even  ap- 
proaches an  analogy.  It  may  be  said  of  some 
of  the  hymns  of  the  Veda  that  their  waiters 
Avere  seekers  after  God,  but  they  were  not  find- 
ers. The  highest  idea  they  formed  of  what 
God  could  bestow  was  earthly,  temporal  bless- 
ings— life,  health,  riches,  success.  Whereas, 
in  the  Psalms  we  have  a  conception  of  the  true 
blessedness  of  the  human  soul,  not  surpassed 
even  in  the  New  Testament.  They  seem  to 
have  anticipated  the  fine  saying  of  Augustine — 
"Thou  hast  made  us  for  Thyself,  and  our  heart 
hath  no  rest  until  it  rest  in  Thee."  See  in  the 
1 6th  Psalm — "  The  Lord  is  the  portion  of  my 
inheritance  and  my  cup."  Not  what  He  gives  or 
promises,  but  Himself  He  is  more  and  better 
than  all  His  gifts.  Just  as  the  eye  was  formed 
for  light,  and  the  ear  for  sound,  and  the  intellect 
for  truth — and  these  organs  can  find  pleasure 
only  in  their  respective  objects — so  the  soul 
was  formed  by  God  for  Himself,  and  can  never 
know  real  and  abiding  enjoyment  except  in 
Him.  This  undertone  runs  all  through  the 
Psalter,  but  sometimes  comes  to  the  surface  in 
a  very  striking  way.  "  There  be  many  that 
say,  who  will  shew  us  any  good  ?  "  (iv.  6). 


THE  DOCTRIh'E  OF  MAN.  95 

Yes,  for  centuries  after  David,  this  was  the 
burden  of  every  philosophical  inquiry,  and 
marny,  many  have  been  the  answers  ;  yet,  none 
has  superseded  His  own  simple  and  all- 
sufficient  utterance — "  Lord,  lift  Thou  up  the 
light  of  Thy  countenance  upon  us." 

So,  again,  in  the  very  remarkable  Psalm  of 
Asaph,  in  which  the  saint  finds  his  faith  stag- 
gered at  seeing  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked. 
Their  eyes  stand  out  with  fatness,  and  they 
have  more  than  heart  could  wish.  It  seems, 
therefore,  as  if  all  the  pains  of  God's  people 
have  been  thrown  away.  In  vain  have  they 
washed  their  hands  in  innocency.  But  going 
into  the  Sanctuary,  he  sees  their  latter  end, 
how  they  are  brought  to  desolation  as  in  a  mo- 
ment, and  all  their  prosperity  vanishes  like  a 
dream.  And  thus  the  apparent  mystery  of 
Providence  is  explained.  But  there  is  more 
than  this.  The  holy  singer  reaches  a  far 
higher  point.  Even  supposing  that  there  were 
no  such  deadly  retribution  as  he  has  been  in- 
formed of,  there  is  no  need  for  him  to  envy  the 
felicities  of  the  wicked.  The  objects  which 
they  seek,  and  prize,  and  enjoy,  are  not  what 
the  believer  needs.  He  has  far  more  and 
better. 


96 


THE  PSALTER. 


Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee  ? 

And  upon  earth  I  desire  none  besides  Thee.  -wa,-»-n 

My  flesh  and  my  heart  faileth  ; 

But  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart  and  my  portion  forever. 

As  Ewald  says — **  Though  all  else  in  heaven 
and  earth  should  fail,  the  one  true  everlasting- 
Friend  abides."  Has  devout  thought  in  any 
age  ever  soared  to  a  loftier  eminence  ?  Asaph 
does  not  fall  into  the  Pantheistic  abyss  of  the 
east,  nor  into  the  mystical  absorption  of  the 
west ;  but  maintaining  distinctly  the  Divine  Per- 
sonality and  his  own,  yet  finds  in  the  friendly 
union  of  the  two,  the  reliance  of  a  finite  soul 
upon  an  infinite  God — all  that  his  heart  can 
wish  or  his  mind  conceive.  The  book  which 
contains  that  thought  came  from  God. 

But  was  this  high  privilege  confined  only  to 
the  race  to  which  belonged  the  men  who  set  it 
forth  ?  Such  a  question  has  often  been  an- 
swered in  the  affirmative.  There  are  many 
who  speak  disparagingly  of  the  Old  Testament, 
on  the  ground  of  its  restricted  views  and  mo- 
rose spirit,  charging  it  with  what  they  call  a 
"  narrow  particularism,"  meaning  by  that  a 
scornful  antipathy  toward  the  rest  of  mankind. 
Now,  it  is  certainly  true  that  the  Psalms  recog- 
nize and  celebrate  with  grateful  praise  the  pre- 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN. 


97 


eminence  which  God  o-ave  to  Israel  over  other 
nations.  How  could  they  omit  to  confess  what 
they  owed  to  Him  who  had  chosen  them  to  be 
His  covenant  people,  who  had  given  them  the 
revelation  of  His  will,  and  manifested  His  gra- 
cious presence  in  the  Sanctuary  ?  Hence,  we 
read  often  such  utterances  as, — 

In  Judah  is  God  known, 

His  name  is  great  in  Israel. — (Ixxvi.  2). 

He  made  known  His  ways  to  Moses, 

His  acts  unto  the  children  of  Israel. — (ciii.  7). 

He  declared  to  Jacob  His  word. 

His  statutes  and  judgments  to  Israel. 

He  hath  not  dealt  so  with  any  nation  ; 

And  His  judgments,  they  know  them  not. — (cxlvii.  19,  20). 

Yet,  it  is  observable  that  these  statements 
are  never  made  with  any  appearance  of  self- 
complacency,  as  if  God's  favors  to  them  were 
bestowed  as  the  reward  of  their  own  merit,  but 
rather  as  incitements  to  thankfulness  and  praise 
and  holy  living.  And  so  far  from  cherishing  a 
narrow,  clannish  spirit,  they  are  constantly  on 
the  outlook  for  the  time  when  the  blessings 
they  enjoy  shall  become  the  common  posses- 
sion of  the  race.  Indeed,  the  spirit  of  the 
Psalms  is  but  an  expansion  of  what  is  given  in 
the  call  of  Abraham.     He  was  segregated  from 

5 


98 


THE  PSALTER. 


his  kindred,  and  made  the  recipient  of  a  special 
revelation.  But  why  ?  The  very  words  of  the 
promise  indicate  the  world-wide  scope  of  the  ar- 
rangement— "  In  thy  seed  shall  all  the  families 
of  the  earth  be  blessed."  So  the  sacred  sing- 
ers believed,  and  so  they  sang.  The  contrast 
between  them,  and  all  other  singers  on  this 
point,  has  often  been  remarked.  In  every  lite- 
rature we  find  the  tradition  of  a  golden  age. 
Men  see  so  much  of  confusion  and  darkness 
in  the  moral  order  of  the  world  in  their  own 
day,  that  the  heart  turns  longingly  to  the  con- 
ception of  a  nobler  and  better  state  of  things 
in  which  truth  and  right  shall  prevail,  and  jus- 
tice accomplish  its  perfect  work.  But  inva- 
riably the  ethnic  religions  placed  the  blessed 
period  of  rest  and  peace  in  the  past,  when  the 
human  race  was  young.  Here  only  did  they 
find  any  basis  for  their  visions,  for  when  they 
undertook  to  forecast  the  future,  it  always 
seemed  as  if  the  world  were  waxing  worse  and 
worse.  Not  only  so.  They  had  no  idea  of 
the  solidarity  of  the  race.  That  is  a  concep- 
tion due  only  to  the  Scriptures.  The  first  ap- 
proach to  it  was  made  in  the  time  of  Alexander 
the  Great,  who,  by  his  vast  conquests  in  Asia, 
and  his   endeavors  to  unify  his  empire  by  as- 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN.  gg 

similating  Europeans  and  Asiatics,  gave  to 
thoughtful  men  the  notion  of  a  universal  history. 
It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  heathen 
contemporaries  of  our  Psalmists  never  looked 
forward  to  a  universal  reign  of  righteousness 
—  never  solaced  the  troubles  of  the  present 
by  glancing  into  the  future.  The  whole  con- 
ception lay  outside  of  their  sphere  of  thought. 
So  much  the  more  wonderful  is  it  that  the 
singers  of  a  small  secluded  people,  shut  off 
from  all  others  by  the  great  sea  on  one 
hand,  and  the  trackless  desert  on  the  other, 
and  still  more  separated  by  an  elaborate  ritual 
which  penetrated  all  points  of  character  and 
usage,  should  yet  lift  themselves  bodily  out  of 
these  restrictions  and  widen  their  sympathies 
to  take  in  all  the  children  of  men  everywhere. 
That  they  did  so,  is  beyond  question.  The 
connections  in  which  they  gave  utterance  to 
this  expectation  of  the  universal  prevalence  of 
truth  and  righteousness  are  manifold  and  vari- 
ous. Sometimes  it  is  in  the  flush  of  some  orreat 
victory,  the  experience  of  which  suggests  the 
thought  of  a  far  more  glorious  manifestation  of 
Jehovah's  victorious  energy.  For  example,  in 
Psalm  xlvii.,  usually  thought  to  have  originated 


lOO  THE  PSALTER. 

in  Jehoshaphat's  triumph  over  Amnion  and 
Edom,  the  poet  begins,- — - 

O  clap  your  hands,  all  ye  peoples  ; 

Shout  unto  God  with  the  voice  of  triumph, 

thus  summoning  the  whole  gentile  world  to 
join  in  the  praise.  Then,  after  reciting  God's 
doings,  he  concludes  with  predicting  an  assem- 
bly of  the  nations  to  do  homage  as  vassals  of 
their  one  Liege-lord  and  King  : 

The  princes  of  the  peoples  are  gathered  together, 

A  people  of  the  God  of  Abraham, 

For  unto  God  belong  the  shields  of  the  earth. 

So  again  in  the  remarkable  68th  Psalm, 
after  recounting  God's  blessings  in  the  wilder- 
ness, under  the  judges,  and  at  the  foundation 
of  the  monarchy,  David  sees  in  these  only  the 
foreshadowings  of  a  mightier  and  far  more  ex- 
tensive conquest : 

Because  of  thy  temple  at  Jerusalem 
Kings  shall  bring  presents  unto  thee. 

Princes  shall  come  out  of  Egypt, 

Ethiopia  shall  eagerly  stretch  out  her  hands  unto  God : 

Kingdoms  of  the  earth,  sing  unto  God  : 

Sing  praises  unto  the  Lord. 

Ascribe  ye  strength  unto  God, 
Over  Israel  is  His  majesty, 
And  His  strength  in  the  cloilds. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN.  \q\ 

This  does  not  mean  simply  a  subjugation  of 
the  heathen  world  for  Israel's  glory,  but  a  sub- 
jection which  should  justly  excite  the  joyful 
praises  of  all  thus  brought  into  the  fellowship 
of  truth.  The  same  prospect  is  still  more  dis- 
tinctly set  forth  in  the  87th  Psalm,  occasion- 
ed by  Hezekiah's  victory  over  Sennacherib. 
After  an  outburst  celebrating  the  glory  of  Zion 
as  the  city  of  God,  the  poet  proceeds  to  de- 
scribe her  brilliant  prospects,  introducing  God 
as  enumerating  among  His  willing  people  those 
who  had  always  been  fierce  enemies  of  His 
cause. 

I  will  mention  Rahab  and  Babylon  as  them  that  know  me. 
Lo,  Philistia  and  Tyre  with  Ethiopia. 
(Of  each  of  these  it  shall  be  said), 
This  one  was  born  there  (/.  ^.,  in  Zion). 

Not  individuals  merely,  but  whole  peoples  are 
to  be  subjects  of  regenerating  grace.  And 
when  Jehovah  makes  out  the  muster-roll  of  His 
nations,  each  of  these  shall  find  a  place  in  the 
registry.  Well  may  such  an  issue  be  commem- 
orated by  a  triumphal  procession,  headed  by 
the  singers  and  the  players,  saying,  "All  my 
springs  are  in  thee." 

Another  class  of  Psalms  looking  to  the  unl- 
versal  diffusion  of  the  truth,  is  found  in  the  little 


I02  THE  PSAL  TER. 

fasciculus,  comprising  xciii.-c,  which  seem  in- 
tended in  times  of  darkness  and  doubt  to  raise 
the  thoughts  of  the  people  up  to  the  Lord  as 
King,  who  will  one  day  come  forth  to  show  His 
boundless  power  and  authority.  The  floods 
lift  up  their  voice,  but  far  above  the  crash  of 
their  foaming  billows  is  the  Lord  on  high  (xciii.) 

He  is  a  great  God  and  a  great  King  above  all  Gods. — (xcv.) 

Give  unto  the  Lord,  ye  families  of  nations. 

Give  unto  the  Lord  glory  and  strength. 

Let  the  sea  roar  and  the  fulness  thereof  ; 

The  world  and  they  that  dwell  therein. 

Let  the  floods  clap  their  hands, 

Let  the  hills  be  joyful  together 

Before  the  Lord  :  for  He  cometh  to  judge  the  earth  : 

With  righteousness  shall  He  judge  the  world 

And  the  peoples  with  equity. 

Sea  and  land,  rivers  and  mountains,  are  all 
summoned  to  praise  in  concert  God's  assump- 
tion of  His  universal  sovereignty.  Then  the 
series  concludes  in  Psalm  lOO,  with  an  invitation 
to  the  entire  race  to  draw  near, — 

Shout  unto  the  Lord,  all  the  earth. 
Serve  the  Lord  with  gladness, 
Come  before  Him  with  singing. 
Know  that  the  Lord  He  is  God, 
It  is  He  that  made  us. 
And  not  we  ourselves. 

Here  are  no  local  restrictions,  no  national 
exclusiveness,  but  a  summons  to  every  kindred 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN. 


103 


and  tribe,  on  the  ground  that  Jehovah  is  the 
one  common  Creator  and  Father  of  all. 

The  same  largeness  of  view  is  found  in  two 
other  Psalms,  very  different  in  their  origin  and 
tone,  the  I02d  and  67th.  The  former,  justly 
entitled  a  prayer  of  the  afflicted,  begins  with 
the  description  of  a  sad  and  bitter  lot,  but  sud- 
denly the  writer  rises  above  his  sorrows  with 
the  thought  that  God  sits  as  King  forever. 
This  divine  majesty  will  one  day  be  manifested 
on  Zion's  behalf,  and  that  so  signally  that  na- 
tions shall  fear  the  name  of  Jehovah,  and  all 
kings  of  the  earth  His  glory.  Not  only  that, 
but  peoples  and  kingdoms  shall  be  gathered 
together  to  unite  with  Israel  in  recounting  Je- 
hovah's praise,  and  doing  His  will.  In  the 
latter  Psalm  all  this  comes  out  so  striking- 
ly, that  it  has  been  called  the  Mission  Hymn 
of  the  Hebrew  Church.  It  is  apparently 
a  harvest  song  in  which  the  devout  singer 
takes  occasion,  from  the  recent  experiences  of 
God's  goodness  in  sending  a  fruitful  season,  to 
entreat  and  to  anticipate  the  extension  of  the 
divine  bounties  to  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

God  be  merciful  to  us  and  bless  us, 
And  make  His  face  to  shine  upon  us. 


I04 


THE  PSALTER. 


Why  ?  Mark  the  large  and  generous  words 
which  immediately  follow : 

That  Thy  way  may  be  known  upon  the  earth, 
Thy  saving  health  among  all  nations. 
Let  the  peoples  praise  Thee,  O  God, 
Let  all  the  peoples  praise  Thee. 

God  even  our  own  God,  shall  bless  us. 

God  shall  bless  us. 

And  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall  fear  Him. 

Visions  like  these  of  universal  peace  and  joy 
have  now  become  the  common  property  of 
man.  They  are  a  most  agreeable  relief  against 
the  tangled  mazes  and  constant  jars  of  ordi- 
nary life,  and  the  wide  separations  and  con- 
trasts of  peoples  and  nations.  And  the  poet 
laureate  of  England,  has  well  voiced  the  sen- 
timents of  our  age  in  his  anticipations  of  the 
period  when 

The  war  drum  throbs  no  longer  and  the  batlle-flagsare  furled 
In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  Federation  of  the  world. 

And  in  his  loud  call, — 

Forward,  forward,  let  us  range. 

Let  the  great  world  spin  forever  down  the  ringing  grooves  of 

change : 
Through  the  shadow  of  the  globe,  we  sweep  into  the  younger 

day. 

Such  an  anticipation  as  this  is  so  familiar  ac 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN. 


105 


to  have  become  one  of  the  commonplaces  of 
human  thought.     All  men  look  forward  to  that 

One  far-off  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves. 

But  it  was  another  matter  three  thousand 
years  ago.  Then  neither  the  reasonings  of 
philosophers,  nor  the  plans  of  statesmen,  nor 
the  dreams  of  poets  took  in  so  wide  a  range. 
They  knew  of  kingdoms,  and  tribes,  and  races  ; 
but  of  the  human  race  as  a  whole,  as  bound  to- 
gether by  a  common  origin,  a  common  nature, 
and  a  common  destiny — of  this  they  had  not 
the  remotest  conception.  It  was  left  for  a 
band  of  singers  in  small,  obscure,  despised  Pal- 
estine to  anticipate  a  reign  of  righteousness, 
which  should  unite  all  the  children  of  men 
under  one  sceptre.  And  they  set  it  forth  not 
merely  as  a  possible  or  desirable  event,  but  as 
one  certain  to  occur  ;  and  they  did  this  not 
simply  in  some  favored  moment  of  prophetic 
inspiration,  but  again  and  again — not  only  in 
one  particular  connection,  but  in  a  great  variety 
of  relations.  The  fact  seems  to  have  entered 
into  the  habitual  current  of  their  devout  medi- 
tations, and  they  declare  it  in  tones  of  the  most 
absolute  conviction  and  certainty.  And  when 
men  now  undertake  to  describe  "the  g^ood  time 


1 06  THE  PSAL  TER. 

coming,"  they  can  find  no  better  materials  for 
their  purpose  than  those  fiirnished  by  the  old 
Hebrew  poets.  The  question  recurs — What 
was  it  that  lifted  these  men  so  greatly  above 
all  their  contemporaries,  and  gave  them  such 
prescience  of  the  far-distant  future  ?  How  did 
their  thoughts  come  to  take  this  direction,  when 
there  was  nothing  in  their  situation  or  sur- 
roundings to  suggest  it  ?  The  only  possible 
answer  is  found  in  the  statement  that  they  sang 
under  a  divine  impulse.  It  is  vain  to  remind  us 
that  the  poet  is  a  seer — that  a  sublime  and 
fiery  genius  enables  its  possessor  to  see  what 
escapes  the  notice  of  ordinary  men.  No  genius 
was  equal  to  a  task  like  this.  The  Hebrews 
had  in  their  immediate  neighborhood  a  crowd 
of  minor  kingdoms,  all  idolatrous,  debased,  and 
sensual.  On  the  south  lay  Egypt  with  its  mas- 
sive temples,  its  stately  ritual,  its  profound 
symbolism,  and  as  bent  upon  its  idols  as  it 
was  in  the  days  of  Abraham.  On  the  east 
were  the  great  military  empires  upon  the  Ti- 
gris and  Euphrates,  which  indeed  changed 
from  time  to  time  as  a  new  tribe  or  family 
came  in  the  ascendant,  but  never  showed  any 
amelioration  in  faith  or  in  morals.  What  up- 
lifting of  mere  human  faculties  could  enable  a 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN.  107 

Jew  to  foresee  that  all  this  imperial  magnifi- 
cence would  pass  entirely  away,  and  its  elabo- 
rate and  gorgeous  idolatries  utterly  disappear, 
and  that  not  only  the  people  of  these  proud 
and  ancient  kingdoms,  but  all  others,  should  be- 
come willing  servants  of  the  One  True  God  ? 
The  question  answers  itself 

The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  teaching 
as  to  the  individual  man — How  came  these  sing- 
ers of  a  comparatively  unlettered  race,  widely 
separated  from  the  intellectual  life  of  the  rest 
of  mankind,  and  without  the  stimulus  of  great 
schools  and  philosophies,  to  describe  so  accu- 
rately man's  glory  and  his  shame  ?  Without 
elation  they  set  forth  his  origin  as  the  creature 
of  God,  the  child  of  God,  and  little  less  than 
divine,  superior  to  all  else  that  the  earth  con- 
tains, and  finding  his  truest  honor  and  bless- 
edness in  communion  with  his  infinite  Maker. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  their  tremendous  im- 
peachment of  human  nature  as  fallen,  we  see  not 
a  trace  of  satire  or  cynicism.  They  say  harder 
things  than  are  found  in  Juvenal  or  Horace,  or 
any  of  their  imitators,  but  there  is  nothing  that 
looks  like  misanthropy.  Their  intense  earnest- 
ness is  blended  and  balanced  with  a  tenderness 
and  compassion  which  forbid  every  malign  emo- 


I08  T^R  PSALTER. 

tion.  With  the  fall  they  see  the  possibility  of 
restoration,  and  for  this  all  needful  provision  is 
made  in  the  disclosure  of  Jehovah's  wonderful 
condescension  and  loving-kindness. 

This,  then,  is  the  trinity  of  truths  respecting 
the  race  which  are  taught  by  the  Psalter,  with  a 
precision,  variety,  fulness,  and  force,  not  sur- 
passed even  by  the  New  Testament.  First, 
man's  original  position  as  a  son  of  God  by 
creation,  stamped  with  his  Maker's  image,  and 
endowed  with  His  dominion  over  the  animal 
world,  but  himself  governed  only  by  reason  and 
conscience.  Secondly,  his  subsequent  fall  from 
that  high  estate,  so  as  to  become  the  prey  of 
sin  and  guilt,  feeding  on  ashes,  out  of  harmony 
with  his  God  and  with  himself,  a  blind  Samson 
groping  amid  the  ruins  of  his  original  home, 
and  pursued  by  the  spectres  of  remorse  and 
fear.  Thirdly,  the  prodigal  coming  back  from 
his  long  wandering,  acknowledging  with  shame 
and  blinding  tears  his  sinful  errors,  caught  up 
in  a  father's  arms,  restored  to  his  old  place  in 
that  father's  heart,  then  through  his  fellowship 
with  heaven,  renewing  his  fellowship  with 
earth,  and  seeing  in  all  the  countless  tribes  of 
the  world  his  fellow-subjects  of  the  Supreme 
Will,  and  his  destined  fellow-partakers  in  the 


J  HE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN. 


109 


riches  of  the  Divine  Mercy.  These  truths  no 
other  set  of  men  even  thought  out,  much  less 
made  them  their  own  by  such  a  Hving  experi- 
ence that  they  were  uttered  in  poetry  and  song 
with  pathos,  with  fiery  energy,  with  subHme 
glory,  with  more  than  earthly  beauty.  Not 
one  discordant  note  is  heard  in  the  whole  col- 
lection. The  reason,  the  only  reason  is  that 
along  with  the  poetic  inspiration  in  these  sweet 
singers  of  Israel,  there  was  the  afflatus  of  the 
Divine  Spirit,  and  the  Psalter  came  from  God. 


i 

V 


LECTURE     IV. 

THE    MESSIAH   AND   A   FUTURE   LIFE. 


LECTURE   IV. 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  A  MESSIAH  PECULIAR  TO  THE  OLD  TESTA- 
MENT— HOW  IT  IS  STATED  IN  THE  PSALTER — THE  SECOND 
PSALM— THE  FORTY-FIFTH — THE  SEVENTY-SECOND — THE 
ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TENTH — THE  TWENTY-SECOND — THE 
CHARACTER  THUS  DESCRIBED — UNLIKE  THE  HINDU  AVA- 
TARA — THE  PERSIAN  SOSIOSH — NOT  OF  SUBJECTIVE  ORIGIN 
— DOCTRINE  OF  A  FUTURE  LIFE — OF  LITTLE  VALUE /^r  se — 
KNOWN  TO  THE  PSALMISTS — NOT  DWELT  UPON — HOW  ITS 
PLACE  WAS  SUPPLIED — THE  ARGUMENT  SUMMED  UP. 

THE  fallen  condition  of  man  is  not  only  a 
doctrine  of  Scripture,  but  a  fact  of  universal 
experience  and  observation.  All  the  religions 
of  the  heathen  world  bear  witness  to  this  fact, 
and  to  their  own  incompetency  to  deal  with  it. 
They  could  devise  no  effectual  relief.  Mankind 
yearned  for  that  which  it  could  not  find,  which 
in  itself  it  did  not  possess.  Neither  mythology 
nor  philosophy  could  give  any  assurance  of  re- 
demption.    Men  cried  aloud  to  heaven,  but  they 

(113) 


114 


THE  PSAL  TER. 


received  no  answer.  The  attempts  even  of  the 
wisest  and  best,  whether  among  Aryan  or 
Semitic  races,  are  not  unfitly  represented  in  the 
words  of  a  Hving  poet, — 

An  infant  crying  in  the  night ; 
An  infant  crying  for  the  light ; 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry. 

It  may  be  said,  therefore,  with  truth,  that  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Messiah,  at  least  in  any  clearly  de- 
veloped form,  is  peculiar  to  the  Old  Testament. 
There  are  indeed  scattered  through  the  Pagan 
mythologies  obscure  allusions  to  a  future  de- 
liverer, but  nowhere  is  there  anything  to  show 
that  this  conception  held  the  place  which  it  oc- 
cupied among  the  Hebrews,  lying  as  it  did  at 
the  very  basis  of  their  national  existence,  and 
giving  shape  and  color  to  all  their  institutions. 
The  first  promise  was  uttered  at  the  gates  of 
Paradise  ;  it  was  renewed  to  Noah,  the  second 
father  of  the  race  ;  it  was  the  reason  of  the  call 
of  Abraham  from  Chaldea  to  Canaan  ;  it  was 
perpetuated  in  his  family  ;  it  underlay  the  insti- 
tution of  the  priestly  and  prophetic  orders  in  the 
Mosaic  Cultus  ;  and  finally  it  blossomed  out  in 
the  monarchy  established  in  the  line  of  David. 
That  is,  by  the  time  of  this  eminent  man,  the 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 


115 


history  of  the  chosen  people  had  been  so 
developed,  its  ecclesiastical  and  political  consti- 
tution had  become  so  fixed,  and  the  cycle  of  its 
fortunes  had  been  so  diversified,  that  abundant 
material  was  furnished  for  expanding  and  illus- 
trating- the  Messianic  Conception  in  every  ap- 
propriate way.  Accordingly,  in  the  great  era 
of  lyric  poetry  which  began  with  David,  we 
should  naturally  expect  to  find  this  lofty  national 
hope  set  forth.  And  so  it  is.  There  are  no 
songs  in  praise  of  the  national  heroes,  a  nega- 
tive fact  still  more  markedly  exhibited  in  the 
hymn  of  Moses  at  the  Red  Sea,  and  that  of  De- 
borah upon  the  overthrow  of  Sisera.  In  neither 
is  there  any  lauding  of  the  human  instruments 
of  the  triumph,  but  the  entire  glory  is  given  to 
Israel's  God.  So  the  Psalter  contains  not  a 
single  paean  in  honor  of  any  one  illustrious  per- 
sonage of  earthly  origin,  from  Abel  and  Enoch 
down  to  David  and  his  mighty  men. 

But  it  does  contain  a  number  of  Psalms  which 
celebrate  in  a  peculiar  and  otherwise  unexampled 
method  the  sufferings  and  the  glories  of  one  ex- 
traordinary personage.  And  they  do  this  in 
such  a  way  as  to  make  it  apparent  that  they  are 
a  fair  expression  of  the  national  thought.  They 
present  to  us  predictions  of  the  great  future  de- 


Il6  THE  PSALTER. 

liverer,  not  abstractly  nor  historically,  not  as 
belonging  entirely  to  remote  ages,  but  as  a 
living  hope  in  the  present  and  as  developed  out 
of  the  existing  experience  of  God's  people. 
The  hopes  and  fears,  the  trials  and  triumphs, 
the  temptations  and  confessions  and  prayers  and 
praises  of  believers,  flowering  into  song  and  ut- 
tering themselves  in  that  poetic  form  which  al- 
ways seems  most  appropriate  to  deep  emotion 
— it  would  indeed  be  strange,  if  these  lyrics 
contained  no  reference  to  that  which  always  was 
the  ground-idea  of  the  nation's  existence.  Nor 
is  it  wonderful  that  there  are  Psalms  in  which  at 
first  it  is  difficult  to  determine  to  what  extent 
and  according  to  what  law  they  are  pervaded  by 
the  Messianic  element.  The  prophets,  priests, 
and  kings  of  the  Old  Testament  were  adumbra- 
tions of  One  who  should  comprehend  in  His  own 
person  all  these  offices.  The  nation  itself  was 
indissolubly  connected  with  its  future  head,  and 
on  that  account  shared  and  anticipated  his  for- 
tunes. Hence  there  are  so  many  instances  in 
which  language  is  used  respecting  the  type 
which  belongs  only  to  the  antitype,  and  others 
in  which  the  singer  almost  insensibly  passes 
from  utterances  appropriate  only  to  himself  or 
the  people  he  represents,  to  utterances  which 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 


117 


necessarily  suggest  the  thought  of  some  one 
spotless,  if  not  divine,  with  whom  the  people 
stand  in  intimate  and  mysterious  union.  But  in 
all  cases  the  drapery  of  the  Psalms  is  native  and 
national.  There  are  no  exotics  in  the  garden 
of  the  Hebrew  muse.  The  imagery  is  taken 
from  the  circumstances  of  the  time  and  place ; 
and  the  poet  expresses  himself  according  to  his 
training  and  experience.  Hence  the  seemingly 
fragmentary  character  of  the  Messianic  Psalms. 
No  one  of  them  gives  a  view  of  Messiah's  whole 
person  or  work  or  character,  but  each  one  takes 
that  portion  or  feature  which  needed  at  the  time 
to  be  set  forth,  leaving  it  for  future  ages  or  the 
progress  of  events  to  adjust  these  separate 
statements  into  one  harmonious  and  self-con- 
sistent portraiture.  To  quarrel  with  this  ar- 
rangement is  to  quarrel  with  the  entire  system 
of  lyric  poetry,  or  with  its  use  as  a  mode  of 
Divine  revelation. 

What,  now,  is  the  Messiah  of  the  Psalms  ?  I 
propose  to  answer  this  question  by  citing  in 
succession  some  of  the  lyrics,  which  by  imme- 
morial tradition,  and  by  the  almost  concurrent 
voice  of  scholars  of  our  own  day,  are  admitted 
to  refer  chiefly,  if  not  exclusively,  to  Christ. 
Let  me  begin  with  the  Second,  the  most  finish- 


Il8  TUB.  PSALTER. 

ed  and  striking  poem  in  the  entire  collection. 
Indeed  I  know  of  none  in  any  language  that 
surpasses  it  in  regularity  of  structure  and  depth 
of  poetic  feeling.  It  consists  of  four  strophes 
of  equal  length,  each  containing  a  distinct  por- 
tion of  the  theme.  In  the  first  the  poet  hears 
the  tramp  of  gathering  armies,  and  as  the  tumult- 
uous host  draws  near,  sees  whole  nations  in 
revolt  and  recognizes  the  presumptuous  words 
of  their  leaders.  And  so  he  breaks  out  in  a 
question  of  wonder  and  horror,  "  Why  do  na- 
tions rage,  and  peoples  imagine  a  vain  thing  ? 
Kings  of  the  earth  have  set  themselves,  and 
princes  have  taken  counsel  against  Jehovah  and 
His  anointed,  saying,  Let  us  break  their  bonds 
asunder,  and  cast  their  cords  from  us."  Then 
all  at  once,  in  the  second  strophe,  he  lifts  his 
eye  far  away  from  this  tempest  of  confusion, 
and  sees  Jehovah  seated  upon  His  everlasting 
throne,  mocking  at  the  fatuity  of  His  adversaries, 
and  calmly  announcing,  to  their  terror  and  con- 
fusion, that  He  had  set  His  king  upon  His  holy 
hill.  Then  in  the  third  strophe,  by  a  sudden  and 
most  dramatic  change  of  speakers,  the  anointed 
king  comes  in,  affirming,  on  the  authority  of 
Jehovah,  his  own  Divine  Sonship,  the  grant  to 
him  of  a    strictly    universal    dominion,  and  of 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 


119 


power  to  exercise  that  dominion,  whether  in 
wrath  or  in  mercy.  Lastly,  in  the  fourth  strophe, 
the  poet  summons  kings  and  judges  to  desist 
from  their  hopeless  enterprise,  and  kissing  the 
Son  to  experience  the  blessedness  of  all  who 
take  refuge  in  Him.  It  seems  to  be  plain  that 
the  person  here  described  could  not  possibly  be 
David  or  any  of  his  line.  The  boundaries  of 
the  promised  land  had  been  definitely  fixed  by 
the  Divine  Word,  and  were  never  exceeded  in 
fact ;  but  here  is  a  covenant  that  Jehovah's 
anointed  Son  should  have  and  exercise  an  un- 
limited dominion,  on  the  ground  of  which 
earthly  rulers  indiscriminately  are  advised  to 
yield  Him  implicit  obedience. 

In  the  Forty-fifth  Psalm,  this  mighty  ruler  re- 
appears. He  is  girded  with  a  sword.  He  rides 
forth  prosperously.  His  arrows  are  sharp,  and 
peoples  fall  under  Him.  But  the  poet  celebrates 
with  emphasis  the  moral  groundwork  of  this 
dominion.  The  Conqueror  is  beautiful  beyond  all 
human  standard  or  comparison,  i.  e.,  invested 
with  every  moral  and  spiritual  attraction.  Grace 
is  poured  into  His  lips.  He  loves  righteousness 
and  hates  iniquity.  For  this  reason  God 
anoints  Him  and  blesses  Him  forever.  Nay,  He 
is  even  addressed  as  divine — "  Thy  throne,  O 


1 20  THE  PSAL  TER. 

God,  is  forever  and  ever."  But  this  King  has  a 
bride  richly  dressed  in  gold  inwoven  garments, 
who,  loaded  with  gifts  and  followed  by  virgins, 
enters  with  music  and  song  into  the  palace, 
where  the  dynasty  thus  established  is  to  have 
perpetual  succession  and  endless  fame.  Here 
is  a  plain  reference  to  the  familiar  figure  used  all 
through  the  sacred  Scriptures,  by  which  the 
relation  between  God  and  His  people,  and  so 
between  Christ  and  His  Church,  is  represented 
as  a  conjugal  tie.  To  consider  the  Psalm  as  a 
glowing  epithalamium  upon  the  marriage  of  a 
mere  earthly  monarch,  is  simply  absurd.  No  king 
of  the  Hebrew,  or  of  any  other  race,  ever  found- 
ed his  title  to  his  throne  simply  upon  his  moral 
qualities,  his  love  of  truth,  meekness  and  right- 
eousness. Yet  this  is  preeminently  the  case 
here.  Because  the  King  is  so  upright,  God 
bestows  upon  Him  an  eternal  blessing,  and  na- 
tions give  Him  thanks  forever. 

The  same  point  is  somewhat  differently  elab 
orated  in  the  Seventy-second  Psalm.  Here  is 
described  by  Solomon  a  superhuman  King  whose 
empire  far  transcends  his  own.  It  reaches 
from  sea  to  sea,  and  from  the  river  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth,  i.  e.,  from  each  frontier  of  the 
promised  land  to  the  remotest  regions  of  the 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE.  12 1 

known  world  in  the  opposite  quarter  :  from  the 
Mediterranean  to  the  ocean  that  washes  the 
shores  of  Eastern  Asia,  and  from  the  Euphrates 
to  the  utmost  west.  Before  its  ruler,  all  who 
are  most  inaccessible  to  the  arms  of  Israel, 
hasten  to  tender  their  voluntary  submission. 
The  wild  sons  of  the  desert,  the  merchants  of 
Tarshish,  the  islanders  of  the  Mediterranean, 
the  Arab  chiefs,  the  wealthy  Ethiopians,  are 
foremost  in  proffering-  their  homage  and  fealty. 
But  this  is  not  enough.  All  kings  are  to  fall 
down  before  Him — all  nations  are  to  do  Him 
service.  His  empire  is  to  be  coextensive  with 
the  world,  and  is  to  last  while  the  moon  endures. 
He  Himself  maybe  out  of  sight,  but  His  Name 
will  endure  forever — that  name  will  propagate 
itself  as  long  as  the  sun  shines,  and  men  shall 
be  blessed  in  Him  to  the  end  of  time.  Yet  this 
kingdom  is  spiritual ;  it  confers  peace  upon  the 
world  only  by  righteousness.  Its  Head  has 
profound  sympathy  with  the  poor  and  the  help- 
less. He  hears  the  cry  of  every  human  heart ; 
He  brings  relief  to  every  human  sufferer.  So 
that  His  appearance  is  like  the  rain  upon  the 
mown  grass,  like  showers  that  water  the  earth. 
He  is  formidable  only  to  oppressors,  whom  He 
breaks  in  pieces  ;   but  the  needy,  the  afflicted, 


122  THE  PSALTER. 

and  the  friendless,  are  the  objects  of  His  pecul- 
iar care.  And  it  is  upon  this  fact,  upon  the 
equity  and  grace  of  the  King-,  that  the  univer- 
sality and  perpetuity  of  His  kingdom  are 
founded. 

Yet  again,  we  meet  with  this  lofty  personage 
in  the  One  Hundred  and  Tenth  Psalm.  Here 
He  is  introduced  at  once,  as  sitting  on  the  right 
hand  of  Jehovah,  as  the  partner  of  His  dignity 
and  power.  Exalted  thus.  He  has  enemies,  but 
they  are  doomed  to  a  remediless  overthrow. 
Nations  and  kings  and  the  wide  earth  shall  feel 
the  resistless  rod  of  His  strength.  When  He 
musters  His  host,  His  people  willingly  offer 
themselves  for  the  service,  clad  not  in  earthly 
armor,  but  in  the  beauties  of  holiness.  And 
they  come  in  countless  multitude  and  never-end- 
ing succession,  like  dewdrops  from  the  womb  of 
the  morning.  But  their  ruler  is  Priest  as  well 
as  King ; — not  Levitical,  nor  Aaronic,  but  of 
that  older  order,  which  in  the  person  of  the 
mysterious  Melchizedek  had  been  honored  even 
by  the  Father  of  the  faithful.  According  to  this 
lofty  type,  the  Messiah  has  neither  beginning  of 
days  nor  end  of  life,  but  sits  forever  a  priest 
upon  His  throne.  And  He  is  Priest-king  mani- 
festly   in    order  that  some   work  of  expiation 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  EUTURE  LIFE.  123 

may  be  accomplished  by  which  His  people  shall 
become  prepared  to  offer  themselves  willingly 
to  His  service,  and  thus  be  worthy  of  sharing  in 
His  universal  conquests.  In  this  double  capaci- 
ty, uniting  the  two  functions,  regal  and  sacerdo- 
tal, which  to  the  Jewish  mind  always  stood 
separate  and  distinct,  the  consecrated  Monarch 
sets  forth  against  His  foes.  When  wearied  in 
the  pursuit,  like  Gideon's  warriors  He  refreshes 
Himself  with  water  from  the  brook,  and  marches 
on,  conquering  and  to  conquer. 

But  the  image  of  the  Priest  suggesting  as  it 
does  the  thought  of  sacrifice,  reminds  us  of 
another  order  of  ideas  respecting  the  Messiah 
which  might  naturally  be  expected  to  occur  in 
the  Psalms.  Accordingly  from  these  bright 
and  glowing  pictures  of  regal  majesty  and 
power  and  victory,  I  turn  back  toward  the  be- 
ginning of  the  collection,  where  we  find  quite  a 
new  conception  of  the  entire  subject.  It  is  in  the 
Twenty-second  Psalm,  the  song  upon  Aijeleth 
vShahar,  the  hind  of  the  morning,  a  title  in  which 
it  is  with  some  probability  supposed  that  the 
hind\%  a  poetical  figure  for  persecuted  innocence, 
and  the  morning  (literally,  dawn)  for  deliverance 
after  long  distress.  The  lyric  concludes  with  a 
graphic  picture  of  the  same  universal  prevalence 


124 


THE  PSALTER. 


of  truth  and  right  already  presented,  but  comes 
to  it  in  a  very  different  way.  The  clash  of  arms 
is  not  heard  once,  nor  the  blare  of  trumpets. 
The  opening  words  are  the  cry  of  a  sufferer 
pleading  for  help.  Apparently  abandoned  by 
heaven  and  earth,  He  is  in  the  last  extremity. 
Furious  enemies  assail  Him  on  every  side,  while 
He  Himself  is  wasted  away,  His  body  reduced  to 
a  skeleton,  His  hands  and  His  feet  pierced ;  and 
as  He  is  thus  hovering  on  the  brink  of  death, 
His  foes  feast  their  eyes  on  the  spectacle  and 
cast  lots  over  His  raiment.  But  just  here  His 
loud  cry  for  help  passes  into  a  confident  antici- 
pation of  deliverance.  The  consequences  of 
this  deliverance  will  be  universal  and  everlast- 
ing. The  rescued  sufferer  will  thank  and  praise 
God  among  all  the  seed  of  Israel,  so  that  their 
heart  shall  live  forever.  Not  only  so,  but  He 
will  perform  His  vows  by  suitable  offerings  and 
sacrifices,  and  to  the  joyful  eucharistic  table 
thus  spread  shall  come  not  only  His  brethren, 
but  all  kindreds  of  the  nations  from  one  end  of 
the  earth  to  the  other.  The  rich  and  the  poor  alike 
shall  gather  to  the  festive  assembly.  Nor  shall 
the  celebration  cease  with  the  contemporary 
race,  but  go  down  from  age  to  age  to  genera- 
tions  yet   unbo]rn.     For  the   Kingdom    is    the 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE.  125 

Lord's,  and    He   is   Governor  among  the  na- 
tions. 

Such  is  the  substance  of  five  Messianic 
Psalms.  There  is  a  score  or  more  besides,  the 
recital  of  which  would  add  to  the  liveliness  and 
the  fulness  of  the  delineation,  but  there  is  not 
time  to  cite  them.  For  the  same  reason  I  have 
not  entered  upon  nice  questions  of  exegesis,  nor 
attempted  to  explain  or  defend  the  principles 
upon  which  the  utterance  of  these  far-reaching 
predictions  is  reconciled  with  the  character  and 
condition  of  their  respective  authors.  Nor  is 
it  any  part  of  the  plan  to  found  an  argument 
upon  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy  as  shown  by  the 
correspondence  between  many  of  the  detailed 
expressions  of  the  Psalter,  and  the  recorded  life 
and  death  and  resurrection  of  our  blessed  Lord. 
This  is  an  interesting  and  fruitful  theme,  but  it 
does  not  belong  here.  All  that  concerns  the 
present  argument  is  simply  the  existence  of 
these  remarkable  poems  in  a  popular  lyric 
collection  of  the  Hebrew  people,  largely  and 
constantly  used  in  their  social  and  public  wor- 
ship. I  have  analyzed  their  contents  and  briefly 
stated  their  general  meaning,  as  it  is  ascertained 
by  the  fixed  laws  of  language.  Nor  does  this 
statement  rest  simply  upon  the  authority  of  the 


126  THE  PSALTER. 

New  Testament.  Had  that  book  never  been 
written,  these  Psalms  would  necessarily  have 
the  same  meaning-  as  has  been  attributed  to 
them.  The  question,  then,  recurs,  how  are  we 
to  account  for  such  a  peculiar  phenomenon  in 
literature  ?  We  are  dealing,  not  with  prose,  but 
with  poetry ;  not  with  a  stately  epic,  but  with 
verses  intended  to  be  sung.  We  are  brought 
into  contact  with  the  throbbing  heart  of  a  people 
giving  free  utterance  to  all  its  hopes  and  fears, 
its  recollections  and  its  anticipations,  in  its 
relations  to  God.  Here  is  a  distinct  class 
of  sacred  odes,  which,  leaving  aside  both 
the  past  and  the  present,  distinctly  points 
to  the  future,  and  declares  the  coming  of 
One  who  is  to  introduce  the  reign  of  universal 
truth  and  peace.  While  He  is  invested  with 
irresistible  might,  and  wields  an  iron  sceptre, 
yet  He  is  Himself  personally  an  example  of  rec- 
titude and  truth  and  grace,  and  the  whole  force 
of  His  administration  turns  in  this  direction. 
He  overthrows  the  proud  and  the  wicked,  but 
is  a  shelter  to  all  the  humble  poor.  He  starts 
from  the  holy  hill  of  Zion ;  He  is  a  product  of 
the  Jewish  race  ;  He  is  to  sit  upon  David's 
throne;  but  His  blessings — not  simply  His  au- 
thority, but  the  benefits  He  confers — are  to  be 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE.  127 

felt  to  the  end  of  the  earth.  He  is,  too,  not  only 
a  king,  but  a  priest,  and  in  some  undefined  way 
His  sufferings  are  connected  with  His  triumph  ; 
so  that  the  former  are  the  cause  of  the  latter. 
Of  course,  in  our  day,  we  understand  the  ex- 
act nature  of  this  connection,  for  we  have  the 
words  of  Him  who  expounded  the  things  writ- 
ten of  Him  in  the  Law  of  Moses,  and  in  the 
Prophets,  and  in  the  Psalms  (Luke  xxiv.  44), 
and  who  said  to  the  two  disciples  on  the  way 
to  Emmaus — "  Ought  not  Christ  to  have  suf- 
fered these  things,  and  to  enter  into  His 
glory  ?  "  (xxiv.  26).  The  contemporaries  of 
David  had  no  such  illumination,  but  they  had 
the  record,  from  which  they  could  scarcely  fail 
to  infer  that  moral  causes  lay  at  the  foundation 
of  the  Messianic  Empire,  and  that  humiliation 
must  precede  exaltation.  Whence,  then,  did 
this  conception  originate  ?  It  was  not  an  im- 
portation from  any  other  race  or  faith,  for  no 
other  had  it.  The  last  hundred  years  have 
thrown  a  flood  of  light  upon  all  the  literature 
and  traditions  of  the  ancient  nations  of  East- 
ern and  Central  Asia.  Neither  Egyptians,  nor 
Brahmans,  nor  Buddhists,  nor  Confucianists,  nor 
Parsees,  nor  Accads,  nor  Chaldeans,  ever  form- 
ed a  conception  of  a  future  deliverer  approach- 


128  THE  PSALTER. 

ing  the  Hebrew  notion,  in  distinctness,  in  pu- 
rity, in  tenderness,  in  universality.  Their  views 
were  distorted  by  mythological  legends  or  ab- 
surd fancies.  Compare  the  Hindu  Avatara  as 
given  in  the  Sanscrit  Scriptures.  Vishna  is  rep- 
resented as  coming  into  the  world  in  ten, 
some  say  twenty-four,  successive  transforma- 
tions, for  the  purpose  of  redressing  wrong  and 
preserving  the  creation.  These  consist  of  a 
series  of  hideous  physical  generations  in  the 
shape  of  a  fish,  a  tortoise,  a  boar,  a  lion,  a 
dwarf,  etc.,  in  all  of  which  metamorphoses  there 
is  a  boundless  store  of  legendary  words  and 
deeds,  but  all  of  them  destitute  of  any  spiritual 
meaning  or  moral  purpose.  What  resemblance 
is  there  between  these  grotesque  and  often  im- 
moral developments,  and  the  picture  of  a  wise, 
and  just,  and  benignant,  and  glorious  king, 
formidable  only  to  the  wicked,  and  at  last  gath- 
ering high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  under  one 
peaceful  sceptre  ?  There  is,  indeed,  some  re- 
semblance in  the  Sosiosh  of  the  Avestan — the 
expected  deliverer  of  the  Perso-Aryan  race, 
who,  when  evil  had  reached  its  final  stage,  was 
to  appear,  and  by  a  process  of  resurrection  and 
judgment,  destroy  at  last  all  the  wicked,  purge 
out  the  dross  from  created  nature,  and  gather 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 


129 


the  whole  race  of  man  on  a  new-born  earth  to 
sing  the  glory  of  Ormazd  and  the  Amshas- 
pands.  But  this  part  of  the  Zendic  Scriptures 
belongs,  if  not  to  post-Christian,  certainly  to  a 
very  late  period  in  the  development  of  Zoroas- 
ter's doctrine,  and  therefore  is  generally  and 
justly  supposed  to  have  been  a  reproduction  of 
views  borrowed  from  the  Jews,  whose  writings 
we  know  were  widely  disseminated  all  through 
the  East  after  the  first  overthrow  of  Babylon. 
Where,  then,  did  the  Jews  get  the  brilliant  con- 
ception of  a  Messiah,  so  inwrought  into  the  lit- 
erature and  the  life  of  the  people,  that  it  rang 
constantly  in  the  choruses  of  the  temple,  and 
was  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  nation  in  every 
time  of  trial — the  pivot  of  their  firmest  hopes, 
and  the  key  to  all  their  Scriptures  ?  Modern 
writers  make  its  origin  human  and  subjective. 
They  say  it  was  the  joint  product  of  the  misfor- 
tunes of  the  times  and  the  theocratic  consti- 
tution— the  experience  of  a  felt  want  in  this  and 
other  instances  exciting  the  imagination  to  fill 
up  the  blank  out  of  its  own  resources.  But 
how  can  this  theory,  however  ingeniously 
wrought  out,  explain  the  Psalms  we  have  been 
considering  ?  These  are  all  of  the  Davidic  or 
Solomonic  period,  when  the  nation  was  united 
6* 


I30 


THE  PSALTER. 


under  one  head,  in  a  state  of  great  prosperity, 
and  with  boundaries  equalHng  the  widest  range 
ever  mentioned  in  the  original  grant  of  Canaan. 
What  subjective  considerations  could  have  led 
writers  in  that  age,  when  even  the  idea  of  a 
universal  history  was  unknown,  to  conceive  of 
a  monarch  who,  by  divine  appointment,  should 
go  forth  from  Zion  and  rule  literally  all  the 
earth,  who  should  do  this  in  the  strictest  exer- 
cise of  righteousness,  and  should  introduce  a 
peaceful  state  of  general  prosperity,  and  yet 
combining  priestly  with  kingly  functions,  should 
in  some  way  suffer  the  extremest  sorrow  as  the 
prelude  of  His  signal  and  eternal  triumph  ?  No 
known  laws  of  human  nature  will  account  for 
such  a  result,  and  no  similar  case  can  be  fur- 
nished from  all  the  records  of  human  expe- 
rience. It  follows,  therefore,  that  these  Psalms 
were  divinely  suggested. 

From  the  Messiah  I  pass  to  the  doctrine  of 
a  Future  Life  in  the  Psalms.  The  absence 
of  full  and  explicit  reference  to  this  subject  has 
not  unfrequendy  been  a  source  of  perplexity, 
even  to  believers.  If  the  Psalter  is  the  one 
divinely  appointed  Liturgy  of  the  Church  in  all 
ages  ;  if  its  fervent  ritual  of  devotion  was  intend- 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE.  131 

ed  to  revolve  within  the  circle  of  every-day  pains, 
fears,  and  solaces  of  our  earthly  pilgrimage,  and 
furnish  the  fittest  material  for  prayer,  praise, 
trust,  and  hope,  why  is  there  so  little  reference 
to  the  final  outcome  of  our  present  life,  to  the 
better  world  beyond  the  grave  ?  In  answer  to 
this  question  it  may  be  observed  : 

(i).  That  the  doctrine  of  Immortality  {per  se) 
is  far  from  deserving  the  emphasis  which  has 
been  placed  upon  it.  It  is  very  true  that  the  ab- 
sence of  the  belief  is  a  serious  reproach.  One 
can  hardly  sufficiently  reprobate  the  crude  mate- 
rialism which  at  the  present  day,  and  often  under 
the  pretence  of  relying  upon  the  results  of  sci- 
entific investigation,  coolly  dismisses  all  thought 
of  a  life  to  come  as  a  mere  dream,  pleasing  in- 
deed, and  affordinof  an  ac^reeable  excitement  to 
the  imagination,  but  utterly  destitute  of  any 
rational  basis.  Far  better  is  the  stout  assertion 
of  Max  Miiller,  that  "  the  stJie  qua  non  of  all  real 
religion,  is  a  belief  in  immortality  and  in  per- 
sonal immortality,  without  which  religion  is  like 
an  arch  resting  upon  one  pillar — like  a  bridge 
ending  in  an  abyss."  Whoso  holds  that  man, 
when  the  breath  leaves  the  body,  perishes  like 
the  beasts,  is  in  great  danger  of  coming  to  act 
upon  the  beastly-maxim,  "  Let  us  eat  and  drink, 


132 


THE  PSALTER. 


for  to-morrow  we  die."  But  it  does  not  follow 
from  this,  that  all  who  are  persuaded  that  there 
is  a  future  life  are  necessarily  possessors  of 
a  pure,  or  elevated,  or  satisfying-  theology. 
There  are  numerous  examples  to  the  contrary, 
alike  among  nations  of  the  highest  refinement 
and  amonof  tribes  of  wanderings  savag-es.  In 
ancient  Egypt  we  have  the  best  developed  con- 
ception of  man's  immortality  which  any  of  the 
heathen  attained — one  that  mcluded  the  ethical 
ideas  of  judgment  and  retribution.  Yet  this 
did  not  save  its  holders  from  the  grossest  forms 
of  polytheism.  For  they  worshipped  even  brute 
animals — a  custom  which  provoked  the  scorn 
not  only  of  Christians,  but  of  the  heathen.  The 
words  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  are  familiar  ; 
speaking  of  a  visitor's  disappointment  when 
passing  through  the  long  and  stately  propylons 
and  halls  of  a  magnificent  temple  gleaming  with 
jewels  and  gold,  till  he  reached  at  last  the  most 
holy  recess,  a  veil  was  drawn  aside  and  reveal- 
ed the  god,  in  the  shape  of  a  bull,  or  a  cat,  or 
a  crocodile,  or  a  serpent!  Plutarch  before 
him  reprobated  this  animal-worship  as  a  fit 
subject  of  laughter  and  ridicule.  Among  the 
Fijians  of  the  South  Sea,  the  belief  of  immor- 
tality led  to  the  most  revolting  bloodshed  ;   for 


THE  MESSIAH  AXD  A  FUTURE  LIFE 


133 


arguing  that  man's  state  after  death  will  be 
precisely  that  in  which  he  was  when  he  died, 
they  destroyed  their  parents,  and  sometimes 
themselves,  while  in  full  health  and  strength,  in 
the  hope  of  thus  escaping  here  and  hereafter 
the  evils  of  age  and  decrepitude.  And  Living- 
stone mentions  numerous  tribes  of  Central  Africa 
who,  when  a  chief  dies,  slaughter  a  number  of 
his  slaves  to  be  his  companions  in  the  other 
world.  So  the  wild  tribes  of  North  America 
all  held  firmly  that  there  was  a  future  life,  but 
almost  the  only  result  was  to  intensify  the 
gloom  and  terror  which  belong  to  all  natural 
religions.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  there  is  no 
religious  character  and  no  ethical  importance 
in  this  much-lauded  tenet.  All  depends  upon 
the  other  doctrines  with  which  it  is  associated. 
(2).  That  it  was  known  and  held  by  the 
authors  of  the  Psalms  is  very  evident.  Their 
fathers  must  have  learned  it  during  their  long 
stay  in  Egypt,  where  it  was  represented  in  paint- 
ing, in  architecture,  and  in  literature.  Besides, 
they  must  have  inferred  it  from  man's  original 
creation  in  the  image  of  God  ;  from  the  trans- 
lation of  Enoch,  and  from  Jehovah's  persistent 
application  to  Himself  of  the  title^ — the  God  of 
Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of 


134 


THE  PSALTER. 


Jacob,  long  after  those  patriarchs  had  ceased  to 
Hv^e  on  the  earth.  Nay,  the  very  superstitions 
of  the  people  bear  witness  on  this  point.  We 
find  that  from  the  time  of  Moses  there  was  con- 
stantly a  class  of  persons  who  professed  to  be 
mediums  of  communication  between  this  world 
and  the  other.  They  were  called  NecromaJicers, 
or  Seekers  to  the  dead — (Deut.  xviii.  ii,  Isaiah 
viii.  19).  See  the  case  of  Saul  and  the  witch 
of  Endor.  It  does  not  make  any  difference 
whether  we  call  this  practice  a  delusion  or  an 
imposture.  In  either  case,  its  prevalence  and 
long  continuance  show  that  the  popular  Jewish 
mind  was  deeply  pervaded  by  a  conviction  that 
the  soul  existed  after  this  life.  But  since  the 
vulofar  held  this  truth  without  livinof  reference 
to  God,  they  only  made  it  a  miserable  super- 
stition. But  besides,  there  are  utterances  in  the 
Psalms  themselves  which  imply  the  conviction 
that  there  is  a  life  beyond  the  present.  In  the 
Sixteenth,  the  sacred  poet,  looking  death  full 
in  the  face,  said : 


Thou  wilt  not  abandon  my  soul  to  the  unseen  world, 
Nor  suffer  Thy  holy  one  to  see  the  pit. 
Thou  wilt  show  me  the  path  of  life, 
Fulness  of  joy  in  Thv  presence, 
Pleasures  at  Thy  right  hand  forevermore. 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 


135 


So  again  in  the  Seventeenth,  contrasting 
himself  with  men  of  the  world  who  have  their 
portion  in  this  life,  who  are  sated  with  children 
to  whom  they  bequeath  their  wealth,  the  poet 
says : 

As  for  me,  in  righteousness  I  shall  behold  Thy  face, 
I  shall  be  satisfied,  when  I  awake,  with  Thy  likeness  ; 

—  a  jubilant  hope  which  never  could  have  been 
bounded  by  the  grave.  A  similar  contrast  is 
found  in  the  Forty-ninth  Psalm,  where  the 
singer  describes  the  vanity  of  men,  even  in  their 
best  estate.  Although  rich,  and  honored,  and 
wise,  they  have  no  permanence.  They  perish 
like  cattle  ;  they  are  laid  in  the  grave  ;  Death 
is  their  shepherd  ;  their  beauty  and  their  glory 
are  gone.  But  he  adds,  "  God  shall  redeem 
my  soul  from  the  power  of  the  grave,  for  He 
shall  take  me."  He  who  knows  and  loves  God, 
has  the  life  of  God,  and  can  never  utterly  perish. 
That  bond  must  survive  even  the  shock  of 
death.  To  the  same  effect,  and  partly  in  the 
same  words,  is  the  utterance  of  Asaph  in  the 
Seventy-third  Psalm.  In  this  striking  lyric,  the 
writer,  after  solving  the  painful  mystery  of  pros- 
perous ungodliness,  declares  that  as  for  himself, 
he  is   ever  held  by  God's  hand,  and  therefore 


136 


THE  PSALTER, 


has  unshaken  confidence.  "  Thou  wilt  guide 
me  with  Thy  counsel,  and  afterward  receive  me 
to  glory.  My  flesh  and  my  heart  faileth,  but 
God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart  and  my  portion 
forever."  Now  it  is  true  that  there  are  other 
utterances  differing  very  widely  from  these, 
such  as  the  following : 

In  death  there  is  no  remembrance  of  Thee, 

In  the  grave  who  shall  give  Thee   thanks  ? — (vi.  5). 

What  profit  is  there  in  my  blood  when  I  go  down  to  the  pit  ? 
Shall  the  dust  praise  Thee  ?   Shall  it  declare  Thy  truth  ?— (xxx.  9). 

Wilt  Thou  show  wonders  unto  the  dead  ? 

Shall  the  shades  below  arise  and  give  Thee  thanks  ? 

Shall  Thy  loving-kindness  be  told  in  the  grave  ? 

Or  thy  faithfulness  in  destruction? — (Ixxxviii.  10,  11). 

These  sorrowful  forebodings  were  uttered  un- 
der a  sense  of  desertion.  Their  authors  felt 
themselves  going  down  to  death  under  a  cloud, 
and  considered  their  situation  a  token  of  the 
Divine  displeasure.  Their  hopeless  gloom  arose 
not  from  the  mere  cessation  of  life,  but  from  its 
cessation  under  the  frown  of  the  Almighty.  If 
He  were  alienated  from  them,  what  hope  had 
they  here  or  hereafter?  Hence  these  wailings 
of  seeming  despair  1 

(3).  Still  it  is  very  evident  that  there  is  a  sharp 
contrast  between  the  teachings  of  the  Old  Tes- 


'I HE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE.  137 

tament  and  those  of  the  New  on  the  subject  of 
immortality.  In  the  latter  there  is  a  fulness,  and 
confidence,  and  glow,  and  splendor  which  leave 
nothing  to  be  desired.  In  the  former  the  state- 
ments are  scanty,  infrequent,  and  sometimes 
apparently  at  least  ambiguous.  And  it  is  very 
certain  that  in  the  Psalter,  which  represents  in  the 
best  way  the  practical  side  of  dogma,  there  is  no 
such  reference  to  the  truth  as  we  should  expect. 
Why  is  this  ?  Why  do  these  devout  singers 
say  so  much  less  of  the  future  life  than  their 
heathen  contemporaries  ?  Why  is  there  not 
even  an  allusion  to  the  process  of  judgment 
upon  every  disembodied  spirit  in  the  Hall  of 
Osiris,  which  their  forefathers  must  have  seen  or 
heard  of  during  their  long  stay  in  the  Nile 
valley  ?  In  short,  why  is  there  the  possession 
of  the  truth,  and  yet  so  little  use  of  it  ?  The 
answer  to  these  questions  furnishes  the  argu- 
ment I  offer  in  the  case.  The  reticence  of  the 
Psalmists  was  divinely  ordered.  The  dispensa- 
tion to  which  they  belonged  was  an  inchoate 
one.  It  was  to  bridge  over  the  interval  between 
the  fall  of  man  and.  the  fulness  of  time  for  the 
appearance  of  the  great  Revcaler  of  God.  For 
that  Revealer  was  to  make  the  full  disclosure  of 
God's  purposes  of  love  and  mercy  toward  His 


1 3  S  THE  PSA  L  TER. 

people.     By  His  coming  He  "  abolished  death 
and  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light."   This 
was  not  simply  the  truth  that  death  is  not  the 
end    of    man.       That    was  known,  or  at  least 
believed,  the  world  over  and  among  all  races. 
But  the  New  Testament  sets  forth  life  and  im- 
mortality in  the  highest  sense — comprehending 
the   resurrection    of    the    body   in   a  new  and 
glorious  form  ;  its  reunion  with  the  soul ;  perfect 
freedom  from  all  the  stain  and  power  of  sin  ;  the 
vision  of  God,  and  the  endless  and  ever-increas- 
ing enjoyment  of  His  favor.       Now  these  things 
could  not  be  fairly  conceived  and  satisfactorily 
applied  until  the  actual  manifestation  of  the  Son 
of  God.   In  His  life,  and  death,  and  rising  again 
from  the  dead,  and  His  ascension  on  high,  there 
was  furnished  the  proper  historical  basis  for  an 
intelligent  and  satisfying  faith  on  these  points. 
And   it    was    proper  that  for  Him  whom  God 
sent  last   of  all,  it   should  be  reserved  fully  to 
lift  the  veil  of  the  future  and  disclose  what  the 
Lord  has  prepared    for   them   that  love   Him. 
Hence  the  sparing  references  to  these  themes 
in  the  Psalms.     The  reserve  was  not  accidental, 
but  designed ;  not  the  result  of  ignorance,  but 
of  knowledee.      Had  the  Psalmists  been  left  to 
themselves  they  would  have  done  like  the  rest  of 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 


139 


mankind — joked  about  Charon  and  his  boat,  or 
constructed  an  elaborate  "Ritual  of  the  Dead," 
like  the  Egyptians,  or  adopted  some  form  of  the 
Hindu  transmigration  of  souls,  or  anticipated  the 
sensual  paradise  of  Moslems,  the  warrior  ban- 
quets of  Scandinavians,  or  the  happy  hunting- 
grounds  of  our  own  Aborigines.  But  they  did 
nothing  of  the  kind.  Their  references  to  the 
subject  are  always  connected  with  the  idea  of 
God.  If  of  a  hopeful  character,  they  anticipate 
being  in  happy  union  with  Him ;  if  of  a  despond- 
ing purport,  the  great  sorrow  is  that  the  chorus 
of  His  praise  must  cease.  Everything  revolves 
around  the  one  central  thought  of  the  Supreme, 
holy,  and  ever-blessed  God,  as  the  abiding  and 
all-sufficient  source  of  their  happiness. 

Here,  then,  lies  the  peculiar,  and,  on  natural 
principles,  inexplicable  position  of  the  Psalmists. 
Having  the  living  roots  of  the  doctrine  in  their 
earlier  literature,  and  meeting  with  varied  forms 
of  it  among  the  heathen  with  whom  they  came 
in  contact,  they  yet  habitually  and  carefully  re- 
frained from  any  prolonged  or  minute  references 
to  it.  The  fruitfulness  and  attractiveness  of  the 
theme  is  apparent  in  all  literature  ;  not  only  in 
that  of  the  ethnic  religions,  but  also  and  eminently 
in  that  of  Christendom,  from  the  splendid  imagery 


140 


THE  PSALTER. 


of  the  Apocalypse,  down  through  the  hymnol- 
ogy  of  all  ages  and  lands,  even  to  our  own  date. 
Upon  scarce  any  theme  does  the  Christian  poet 
rise  on  loftier  wing,  or  take  a  wider  sweep  of 
imaginative  conception,  than  when  expatiating 
upon  the  future  glories  of  the  believer.  But 
the  old  Psalmists  stay  their  hands.  They  de- 
light to  dwell  on  the  Divine  perfections  or  the 
glory  of  the  Divine  government.  They  are 
never  weary  of  setting  forth  the  trust  and  confi- 
dence and  peace  and  joy  that  are  found  in 
fellowship  with  the  unseen  Jehovah.  This  is 
represented  in  the  largest  variety  of  phrase: — 
the  shadow  of  a  great  [rock  in  a  weary  land, 
manna  in  the  wilderness,  gushing  streams  in  the 
desert,  the  dawn  of  morning  to  a  weary  night- 
watcher,  a  shelter  from  the  storm,  a  portion 
sweeter  than  honey,  more  desirable  than  gold. 
But  as  soon  as  they  approach  the  life  to  come, 
they  give  but  a  glance  within  the  veil,  and  then 
retreat  to  dwell  upon  the  present  spiritual 
relations  of  the  creature  and  his  Creator.  For 
here  was  all  that  was  needed.  If  the  Almighty 
reveals  Himself  in  condescension  and  love  to 
His  people  as  their  God — their  dwelling  place, 
the  rock  of  their  streno-th — this  involves  an  end- 
less   relation,  for  surely   the  living  God  would 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 


141 


not  expend  His  riches  of  love  upon  perishing 
creatures  of  clay  whose  houses  are  crushed 
before  the  moth.  We  see  and  feel  this  as  a 
matter  of  course.  And  to  us  a  mere  naked  im- 
mortality, such  as  is  found  among  the  lowest 
tribes  of  men,  bears  no  comparison  in  dignity 
and  value  to  the  idea  of  a  present  happy  life 
with  God.  But  the  marvel  is,  that  the  Hebrew 
singers  understood  this  so  distinctly,  and  were 
controlled  by  it  so  entirely  in  their  most  impas- 
sioned utterances. 

The  case,  then,  stands  thus  :  On  the  one  side 
we  find  the  doctrine  of  the  soul's  immortality 
holding  a  fixed  and  prominent  place  among  the 
articles  of  popular  belief  the  world  over,  in  an- 
cient times  as  well  as  modern.  This  position 
has  been  indeed  at  times  attacked,  but  never 
successfully.  The  evidence  adduced  from  the 
old  Sanscrit  texts,  or  the  graven  or  painted 
walls  of  Thebes  or  Philae,  or  the  cuneiform  in- 
scriptions of  Nineveh  or  Persepolis,  or  the  litera- 
ture of  Greece  and  Rome,  or  the  consensus  of 
modern  travelers,  is  altogether  too  abundant 
and  clear  to  be  resisted.  The  belief  was  so 
widespread,  if  not  universal,  as  to  compel  us  to 
attribute  it  to  the  common  instincts  of  man's  nat- 
ure.    As  Coleridge  says,  "  Its  fibres  are  to  be 


142 


THE  PSALTER. 


traced  to  the  tap-root  of  humanity."  But  the 
beHef  was  always  expressed  in  gross  and  in- 
adequate forms,  and  associated  with  outlandish 
views,  as  if  to  show  that  our  fallen  nature,  left 
to  itself,  could  not  frame  any  rational  view  of  the 
mode  of  existence  in  the  world  to  come,  or  of 
the  character  of  its  retributions.  Hence  men 
devised  the  fables  of  Elysium  and  Tartarus,  the 
Metempsychosis  from  one  fleshly  form  into  an- 
other, the  absorption  into  the  divine  unity,  and 
the  like.  Hence,  too,  the  folly  of  the  Necro- 
mancy of  our  own  day,  the  self-styled  Spiritual- 
ism which  for  a  generation  has  been  rampant  in 
this  country.  This  crude  imposture  boasts 
much  of  its  clear  disclosure  of  a  future  life,  and 
indeed  has  converted  some  materialists.  But 
wherein  has  there  been  any  gain  to  human 
knowledge  or  happiness  or  character  ?  The 
history  of  the  movement  has  only  added  another 
to  the  many  illustrations  already  on  record,  of 
the  moral  impotence  of  the  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality held  in  and  for  itself  to  elevate  or  purify. 
"  The  power  of  an  endless  life  "  (Hebrew  vii. 
1 6)  is  something  transcendent  and  ineffable; 
but  if  it  be  separated  from  its  kindred  thought 
of  the  eternal  God  as  the  moral  governor  of  the 
world  and  the  satisfying  portion  of  the  soul,  it 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE.  143 

at  once  degenerates  into  grotesque  or  monstrous 
or  puerile  conceptions,  or  else  resolves  itself  in- 
to a  mere  prolongation  of  the  present  state  of 
things  without  essential  change,  and  therefore 
destitute  of  any  restraining  or  uplifting  influence. 
The  mere  continuance  of  being  after  death  is 
rather  a  metaphysical  dogma  than  a  religious 
truth,  and  may  coexist  with  the  crudest  and 
most  unspiritual  notions.  The  Esquimaux,  the 
Papuan,  the  wildest  savages  in  the  forests  of 
Central  Africa,  have  no  doubt  that  the  spirits  of 
their  departed  ancestors  survive,  but  in  no  de- 
gree does  this  conviction  raise  them  in  the  scale 
of  thinking  beings. 

On  the  other  side,  we  find  the  doctrine  among 
the  Hebrews  held  indeed,  and  occasionally  illus- 
trated in  a  remarkable  manner,  but  still  not 
thrust  forward  or  made  prominent,  and  yet  all 
its  essential  ends  gained  in  the  fullest  manner. 
The  Hebrew  poets  talk  of  man's  mortality  in. a 
strain  of  effectiveness  and  pathos  nowhere  sur 
passed.  They  represent  the  frailty,  the  vanity, 
the  emptiness  of  human  pursuits  and  expecta- 
tions, with  a  keenness  which  no  satirist  of 
Greece  or  Rome  has  exceeded.  And  yet  their 
doctrine  of  man's  kinship  with  God,  of  his  filial 
relation,    of  his  capacities   of  holiness,   of  his 


144 


THE  PSALTER. 


faith  in  the  unseen,  of  the  superiority  of  spiritual 
things  to  temporal,  of  the  certain  overthrow  of 
the  transgressor  and  the  equally  certain  recom- 
pense of  the  righteous,  of  the  forgiveness  of  sin 
upon  repentance  and  confession,  and  of  the  bless- 
edness of  the  new  life  thus  secured — this  doc- 
trine, I  say,  quite  restored  the  scale,  and  put  man 
in  his  social  and  religious  relations  in  a  position 
which  no  other  ancient  nation  even  approached. 
It  is  pertinent,  then,  again  to  ask.  What  occa- 
sioned this  remarkable  difference  ?  How  comes 
it  to  pass  that  in  one  nation — and  that  not  dis- 
tinguished by  a  philosophical  spirit,  nor  by  a 
gift  for  speculative  inquiries — we  find  inwrought 
not  only  in  its  formal  creed  and  national  history, 
but  also  in  its  pious  meditations  and  lyric  songs, 
a  marked  and  seemingly  studied  reticence  upon 
the  life  beyond  the  grave,  united  with  an  intense- 
ly pure  and  spiritual  conception  of  all  divine 
things  ?  The  only  answer  is,  that  they  were 
divinely  guided.  This  superintendence  on  the 
one  hand  kept  them  from  the  vain  and  foolish 
imaginations  which  deluded  all  their  contempo- 
raries, and  on  the  other  refused  to  grant  that 
decree  of  illumination  which  would  have  been 
inconsistent  wiUi  the  design  and  character  of 
the  inchoate  system  to  which  they  belonged. 


THE  MESSIAH  AND  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 


H5 


In  conclusion,  let  me  suggest  the  contrasted 
relations  of  the  two  themes  we  have  been  con- 
sidering.     Both  refer  to  the  Future,  and  yet  how 
differently   treated !     Of  the    coming    Messiah 
there    is   abundant  mention — His   person,    His 
offices.  His  suffering.  His  kingdom,  His  glory, 
His  moral  excellence,  His  world-wide  influence, 
His  imperishable  name.     The  picture  is  so  com- 
plete,  so  vivid,  so  striking,   that  it  requires  a 
vigorous    imagination    to    find    any    tolerable 
analogies  to  it  in  the  literatures  of  other  ancient 
nations.     Yet  in  regard  to  Immortality,  the  con- 
trast is  the  other  way.     Here  the  Hebrew  sing- 
ers are   reticent  and  obscure.      Occasionally  a 
rift  for  a  moment   parts  the  clouds,   and    one 
catches  a  glimpse  of  the  pleasures  forevermore  ; 
but  in  an  instant  the  curtain  is  drawn  again,  and 
it  is  the  present  relations  of  the  soul  to   God 
that  occupy  all  the  attention.       The   ethnic  re- 
ligions, on  the  contrary,  all  habitually  point  for- 
ward to  what  follows  this  life,  making  indeed 
sad  work  of  it.     For  just  as  the  old  map-makers 
filled  the  unexplored  regions  of  Central  Africa 
with  figures  of  unicorns  and  elephants  and  all 
sorts  of  mythical  wild  beasts,  so  these  peopled 
the  unknown  beyond  with  monstrous  imagina- 
7 


146  THE  PSALTER. 

tions  which  terrified,  but  could  not  attract.  Now 
it  is  on  this  departure  from  the  beaten  track  of 
all  the  world  that  the  argument  bases  itself 
Why,  in  that  outlook  upon  the  future  which  all 
thoughtful  men  must  take — and  the  more  when 
the  soul  is  roused  by  deep  experiences — why  do 
the  Hebrew  poets  say  so  little  of  one  theme  on 
which  others  are  profuse  and  animated,  and  yet 
linger  long  and  lovingly  on  the  theme  upon 
which  these  others  have  little  or  nothing  to  say? 
The  reason  can  not  be  found  in  race  or  soil  or 
climate  or  national  character  or  institutions  or 
surroundings.  The  only  sufficient  and  intelli- 
gible cause  is  given  in  the  fact  that  the  sacred 
sino-ers  of  Palestine  were  under  the  control  of  a 
superior  Power,  which  without  impairing  their 
freedom,  yet  guided  their  choice  of  themes,  and 
the  way  in  which  they  treated  those  themes. 


LECTURE     V. 

THE   ETHICS   OF   THE   PSALMS. 


LECTURE  V. 


THE    ETHICS    OF    THE     PSALMS. 

A  FAIR  TEST — NEGATIVE  EXCELLENCE — PURITY  OF  THE  MOR- 
ALITY— FREEDOM  FROM  ASCETICISM,  FORMALISM,  HYPOC- 
RISY— LOWLY,  YET  JOYFUL  AND  FREE — NOT  SELF-RIGHT- 
EOUS— THE  IMPRECATIONS  VINDICATED — LORD  MACAULAY 
AND  DR.  DUFF — HISTORY  OF  THE  PSALTER — TESTIMONIES 
TO  ITS  WORTH — CONCLUSION. 

^^  TD  Y  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them,"  is  a 
X-^  maxim  of  universal  and  absolute  truth. 
It  holds  good  in  morals,  in  political  economy,  in 
statesmanship,  just  as  much  as  in  all  natural 
processes.  Good  fruit  the  world  over  indi- 
cates a  good  tree,  and  evil  fruit  an  evil  tree  ; 
and  so  in  all  other  relations.  Plans  and  theo- 
ries and  projects  may  be  apparently  rational 
and  judicious,  but  if  on  trial  the  results  are  bad, 
men  almost  instinctively  reason  back  from  effects 
to  causes,  and.  insist  that  the  underlying  prin- 
ciples must  be  unsound.    But  in  no  department 

(149) 


I50 


THE  PSALTER. 


of  human  thought  and  action  is  this  so  manifest 
as  in  all  that  pertains  to  religion.  If  a  book, 
or  a  doctrine,  or  a  practice,  can  be  shown  to 
lead  to  immorality,  that  fact  at  once  puts  an 
end  to  dispute  or  doubt.  In  the  nature  of 
things,  i.  e.,  in  the  constitution  of  human  so- 
ciety under  the  control  of  one  supreme  and  in- 
finite Being,  truth  must  be  in  order  to  good- 
ness, sound  principles  must  lead  to  virtuous 
living. 

From  the  beginning  this  doctrine  has  been 
used  in  Christian  Apologetics.  Indeed,  Gibbon, 
in  his  well-known  enumeration  of  the  secondary 
causes  of  the  rapid  propagation  of  the  Gospel 
in  the  first  centuries  of  our  era,  expressly  men- 
tions the  pure  morals  of  the  followers  of  the 
new  faith  as  a  powerful  and  widespread  influ- 
ence in  its  favor,  as  it  certainly  was — and  the 
more  so,  as  this  fact  was  shown  to  be  the  result 
of  the  holy  precept  and  example  of  the  founder 
of  the  system.  But  many,  while  admitting 
this  claim,  have  tried  to  break  its  force  by  dis- 
paraging the  elder  Scriptures.  They  compli- 
ment the  New  Testament  at  the  expense  of  the 
Old.  No  judicious  defender  of  the  faith  will  ac- 
cept such  compliments.  Not  only  the  nature  of 
the  case,  but  the  painful  results  of  experience 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  151 

during  the  last  century,  show  that  both  Testa- 
ments constitute  integral  and  constituent  parts 
of  one  book,  nor  can  they  be  separated  without 
violence  and  harm.  The  Hebrew  Scriptures 
are  to  the  Greek  what  the  foundation  is  to  a 
house  ;  and  to  cut  them  off  is  to  leave  Chris- 
tianity like  an  exquisitely-shaped  and  propor- 
tioned pyramid  floating  in  the  air.  He  who 
surrenders  Moses  and  the  Prophets  must,  in 
logical  consistency,  surrender  Christ  and  the 
Apostles  in  like  manner.  Of  course  the  two 
portions  of  the  book  are  not  identical — if  they 
were,  why  should  there  be  two  ?  They  have 
differences,  but  these  differences  spring  out  of 
the  fact  that  the  revelation  is  a  gradual  one,  of 
which  the  earlier  portions  point  to  the  later, 
while  the  later  presuppose  the  earlier.  There 
will,  therefore,  naturally  be  in  the  concluding 
part  a  fulness  and  maturity  not  to  be  expected 
in  what  goes  before.  Yet,  substantially  the 
doctrinal  and  moral  teaching  will  be  the  same. 

Is  this  the  fact?  To  answer  this  question 
out  of  the  Psalter  is  the  aim  of  the  present  Lec- 
ture. Here  one  has  the  advantage  of  seeing 
the  matter  in  the  fairest  light.  For  lyric  poems 
are  expressions  of  experience — songs  of  the 
heart.     They  contain  views  of  truth  and  duty, 


152 


THE  PSALTER. 


not  arranged  and  tabulated  as  in  a  code  or 
treatise,  but  actually  felt  and  uttered  under  the 
varying-  circumstances  of  outward  providence 
or  inward  struggles.  The  singer  looks  out 
upon  God,  or  the  external  world,  or  his  fellows, 
or  inwardly  upon  his  own  past  or  present ;  and 
then  his  soul  is  stirred  within  him,  his  heart 
boils  over,  and  he  bursts  into  song.  Such  ut- 
terances must  be  sincere.  They  are  wrung 
out  of  a  great  pressure  from  within,  and  they 
bear  the  stamp  of  their  origin.  They  register 
the  moral  status  of  the  poet  with  unfailing 
accuracy.  In  looking  at  this  status,  the  first 
impression  concerns  its  negative  character. 
One  finds  a  total  absence  of  the  coarseness, 
frivolity,  or  downright  immorality  so  offensively 
prominent  in  the  hymns  to  the  gods  preserved 
in  some  other  religions.  The  whole  atmos- 
phere is  one  of  seriousness  and  purity.  There 
are  no  tales  of  mischievous  adventure,  of  cun- 
ning tricks,  or  of  sensual  indulgences  as  in 
the  Homeric  Hymns  ;  nor  is  there  any  iden- 
tifying of  God  and  Nature  as  one  and  the 
same,  whether  in  the  attractive  or  the  terri- 
ble manifestations  of  physical  phenomena,  nor 
a  habitual  supplication  for  mere  outward  gifts, 
such  as  health,  children,  fertile  pastures,  boun- 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  153 

teous  harvests,  victory  over  foes,  which  con- 
stitute the  staple  of  the  prayers  in  the  Rig-- Veda. 
One  will  look  in  vain  through  the  entire  Psal- 
ter for  any  compromise  of  morality,  any  deifica- 
tion of  natural  powers,  any  representation  or 
suggestion  of  true  happiness  as  possible  or  de- 
sirable apart  from  the  knowledge  and  service 
of  a  holy  God.  It  is  an  entirely  safe  book  to 
put  into  the  hands  of  the  young,  the  inexpe- 
rienced, or  the  ignorant.  They  can  learn  noth- 
ing which  they  will  need  to  unlearn,  nothing  to 
weaken  the  moral  forces  of  the  soul,  or  give  an 
unhealthy  direction  to  the  imagination. 

But  to  say  this  is  to  say  little  in  comparison 
with  the  truth.  The  Psalter  not  only  does  not 
impair  the  principles  of  morals,  but  in  every 
way  confirms  and  establishes  them.  It  makes 
for  righteousness  throughout.  The  key-note 
is  given  in  the  first  Psalm,  often  considered  a 
sort  of  preface  to  the  whole.  The  theme  is  the 
Happy  Man.  Who  is  he  ?  Where  is  he  to  be 
found?  How  is  he  to  be  described?  Is  he 
known  or  made  by  the  possession  of  wealth,  or 
place,  or  learning,  or  power,  or  any  other  form 
of  worldly  good  ?  Nay.  He  is  the  one  who 
walks  not  in  the  way  of  the  ungodly,  nor  stands 
7* 


IS4 


THE  PSALTER, 


in  the  way  of  sinners,  nor  sits  in  the  seat  of  the 
scornful ;  but  his  dehght  is  in  the  law  of  the 
Lord,  and  in  that  law  he  meditates  day  and 
night.  Such  a  man  is  like  a  tree  planted  be- 
side living  streams  whose  fruit  does  not  fail, 
neither  does  its  leaf  wither ;  whereas  a  wicked 
man  is  like  the  dry  and  worthless  chaff  which 
the  wind  drives  away. 

Here  is  suo-aested  what  is  one  of  the  most 
marked  and  discriminating  features  of  the  He- 
brew Ethics,  viz.,  that  they  are  deeply  rooted 
in  religion.  In  all  false  religions,  ancient  and 
modern,  and  in  some  corrupt  forms  of  Christi- 
anity, the  two  things  are  widely  separated.  A 
man  may  be  moral  without  being  religious,  and 
vice  versa.  Religion  is  a  set  of  tenets  and 
ritual  practices  which  may  be  carefully  observed 
and  yet  leave  the  outward  secular  life  wholly 
unaffected.  Morality,  oh  the  other  hand,  is  the 
discharge  of  social  duties  without  respect  to 
divine  authority,  or  the  sanctions  of  Providence. 
The  Psalter  knows  nothing  of  this  most  mis- 
chievous divorce  between  integrity  of  life  and 
the  eternal,  spiritual  truth  upon  which  all  up- 
rightness must  rest.  It  uniformly  represents 
God  as  governor  and  ruler — the  source,  the 
standard,  and  the  efficacious  cause  of  all  moral 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS, 


155 


good.  Justice,  temperance,  truth,  meekness, 
and  love  have  Indeed  intrinsic  value ;  but  they 
press  upon  the  heart  and  conscience  of  these 
singers,  because  they  are  part  of  the  express 
will  of  God.  The  servant  of  Jehovah,  as  such, 
must  have  and  exercise  these  qualities.  See 
this  finely  set  forth  in  a  Psalm  (xv.)  usually 
thought  to  have  been  composed  on  occasion  of 
the  removal  of  the  Ark  to  Zion  : 

Lord,  who  shall  abide  in  Thy  tabernacle  ? 
Who  shall  dwell  in  Thy  holy  hill  ? 

The  answer  is  not.  He  that  is  circumcised, 
that  comes  to  the  great  yearly  festivals,  that 
shuns  unclean  food,  or  anything  of  the  kind,  but 

He  that  walketh  uprightly,  and  worketh  righteousness. 

And  speaketh  truth  in  his  heart: 

Who  backbiteth  not  with  his  tongue, 

Nor  doeth  evil  to  his  neighbor, 

Nor  taketh  up  a  reproach  against  his  friend ; 

In  whose  eyes  a  vile  person  is  contemned, 

But  he  honoreth  them  that  fear  the  Lord  ; 

Who  sweareth  to  his  own  hurt  and  changeth  not. 

He  that  doeth  these  things  shall  never  be  moved. 

Is  there  anywhere  a  brighter  picture  of  stain- 
less honor,  of  lofty  integrity  ? — yet  the  whole 
inseparably  linked  with  the  presence  and  favor 
of  God  as  its  oricrin  and  sanction. 


156 


THE  r SALTER. 


Yet  with  this  elevated  standard  of  ethical 
principle  there  is  nothing-  overstrained  or  exag- 
gerated. There  is  not  the  least  tinge  of  ascet- 
icism ;  no  punishing  of  the  body  for  the  sins  of 
the  soul ;  no  denial  of  the  sweet  charities  of 
domestic  life  ;  no  rejection  of  civil  or  political  re- 
lations as  inherently  sinful  or  unbecoming  ;  no 
praise  of  celibacy,  or  solitude,  or  any  other 
form  of  voluntary  renunciation  of  what  is  in  it- 
self innocent — nothing  whatever  in  common 
with  self-torturing  Brahmans,  or  Jewish  Essenes, 
or  scornful  Stoics,  or  even  Christian  stylites  or 
anchorets.  On  the  contrary,  there  are  domes- 
tic, household,  social,  and  patriotic  Psalms. 
These  compare  brotherly  affection  to  the  dews 
of  Hermon,  or  the  fragrant  oil  of  the  sanctu- 
ary ;  God's  continual  providence  to  favors  sent 
in  sleep  ;  children  at  one  time  to  the  olive  plants 
around  the  table^  at  another  to  arrows  which 
fill  the  quiver  of  a  hero  ;  while  the  daughters  are 
corner-pillars  polished  after  the  similitude  of  a 
palace. 

The  Psalmists  praise  God  as  the  Father  of 
the  fatherless,  the  Judge  of  the  widow,  who  sets 
the  solitary  in  families,  and  makes  the  barren 
woman  the  joyful  mother  of  children.  They 
exult    in    Jerusalem    as    the    city  of   God,   the 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


157 


mountain  of  His  holiness,  the  place  where  His 
honor  dwelleth,  and  invoke  peace  within  her 
walls  and  prosperity  within  her  palaces.  And 
of  Mount  Zion  they  declare  that  it  is  beautiful 
for  situation,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth,  a  place 
more  excellent  and  glorious  than  all  the  moun- 
tains of  prey ;  God  Himself  establishes  it  for- 
ever. The  whole  tone  here  is  peaceful,  domes- 
tic, and  national  in  the  best  sense.  The  moral- 
ity is  not  that  of  slaves,  or  of  hermits,  or  of 
philosophers,  or  of  devotees,  but  of  men,  wom- 
en, and  children,  engaged  in  all  the  usual  re- 
lations of  human  life,  but  elevating  and  trans- 
figuring these  by  a  constant  sense  of  their  com- 
mon obligation  as  children  of  the  heavenly 
King,  as  subjects  of  a  holy  and  beneficent  law. 
The  purity  of  the  Hebrew  ethics  is  the  more 
remarkable  when  one  considers  the  minute  and 
complicated  ritual  of  worship  in  which  all  the 
authors  of  the  Psalms  were  trained.  The  whole 
round  of  sacred  persons  and  places  and  times 
was  prescribed  according  to  the  pattern  shown  to 
Moses  on  the  mount.  The  custom  of  sacrifices 
or  offerings,  bloody  or  unbloody,  found  in  all 
the  ancient  nations,  was  here  developed  with 
amazing  fulness.  Every  day  the  morning  and 
the  evening  sacrifice  was  kindled.    On  the  week- 


1 5  8  1^^^!^  PSA  L  TER. 

ly,  monthly,  yearly  festivals,  besides  innumerable 
occasions  of  a  private  or  personal  nature,  the 
blood  of  bulls  and  goats  ran,  the  smoke  of  incense 
ascended,  the  steam  of  burning  flesh  filled  the 
courts  of  the  tabernacle.  The  cultus  was 
stately  and  imposing  in  the  highest  degree. 
Nothing,  therefore,  was  more  natural  than  for 
the  worshippers  to  fall  into  what  in  modern 
times  is  called  the  opus  operatum  theory,  and 
to  attribute  an  intrinsic  and  inherent  efficacy  to 
the  gorgeous  ceremonial  in  which  they  were 
habitually  engaged.  This  was  a  common  error 
among  the  heathen.  They  supposed,  or  at 
least  are  represented  by  the  poets  as  suppos- 
ing, that  hecatombs  of  victims  and  costly  liba- 
tions brought  their  divinities  under  obligation  to 
them,  so  that  it  would  be  ungrateful  and  wrong 
not  to  show  favor  to  such  earnest  and  self-sac- 
rificing worshippers.  Nor  is  there  any  reason 
to  doubt  that  a  similar  degrading  notion  at 
times  obtained  among  the  Hebrews.  But  it 
never  found  expression  among  the  Psalmists. 
Again  and  again  do  they  repudiate  it,  especially 
in  the  great  judicial  process  described  in  the 
Fiftieth  Psalm.  Here  Jehovah,  revealing  Him- 
self in  fire  and  tempest  as  at  Sinai,  summons  the 
people  before  Him,  and  in  lofty  irony  reproves 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  159 

the  stupidity  which  would  deem  mere  outward 
oblations  any  gratification  to  Him. 

I  will  not  reprove  thee  for  thy  sacrifices. 

Or  for  thy  burnt-offerings  continually  before  Me. 

I  will  take  no  bullock  out  of  thy  house, 

Nor  he-goats  from  thy  folds. 

For  every  beast  of  the  forest  is  Mine, 

And  the  cattle  upon  a  thousand  hills. 

I  know  all  the  fowls  of  the  mountains, 

And  whatever  moveth  in  the  fields  is  with  Me. 

If  I  were  hungry  I  would  not  tell  thee. 

For  the  world  is  Mine,  and  the  fulness  thereof. 

Will  I  eat  the  flesh  of  bulls, 

Or  drink  the  blood  of  goats  ? 

Do  I  need  such  things,  or  is  it  possible  for  Me 
to  use  them  ?  Yet  it  is  to  be  observed  that  in 
avoiding  one  error  the  writer  does  not  run  into 
the  opposite.  Because  sacrifices  have  no  in- 
trinsic merit  and  can  not  feed  the  Deity,  it  does 
not  follow  that  they  are  useless.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  were  both  needed  and  commanded. 
Hence  soon  after  the  vigorous  expostulation 
just  recited,  follows  the  precept — 

Sacrifice  to  God  thanksgiving, 

And  so  pay  thy  vows  to  the  Most  High. 

The  animal  victims  were  still  to  be  offered,  but 
as  symbolical  expressions  of  penitence,  faith, 
and  devout  affection.      Presented  in   this  way 


1 60  ^^^  ^-S".  /  L  TER. 

they  fulfilled  their  function,  and  the  believer 
would  find  his  worship  accepted  and  blessed. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  same  Psalm  we  have 
a  similar  testimony  against  another  error  com- 
mon among  the  professors  of  every  faith.  This 
is  hypocrisy,  the  substitution  of  words  for 
deeds,  the  homage  which  vice  pays  to  virtue. 

Unto  the  wicked  God  saith, 

What  hast  thou  to  do  to  declare  My  statutes 

And  take  My  covenant  into  thy  mouth  ? 

"Whereas  thou  hatest  instruction, 

And  hast  cast  My  words  behind  thee. 

And  then  He  proceeds  to  specify  violations  of 
three  of  the  commandments,  concluding  with 
the  solemn  Avords, — 

These  things  hast  thou  done 

And  I  kept  silence  ; 

Thou  thoughtest  I  was  just  like  thyself. 

I  will  reprove  thee, 

And  array  (thy  sins)  before  thine  eyes. 

The  uniform  doctrine  of  the  Psalter  is  that 
God  requires  truth  in  the  inward  parts.  Men 
may  forget  His  character  and  attempt  to  im- 
pose upon  Him  by  sounding  professions,  but 
the  effort  is  vain.  The  mask  will  be  stripped 
off  from  every  hypocrite,  and  all  secret  iniquities 
be  brought  to  light.     They  who  would  walk  so 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  i6l 

as  to  please  God  must  have  clean  hands  and  a 
pure  heart.  Otherwise  they  only  flatter  them- 
selves in  their  own  eyes  until  their  iniquity  is 
found  to  be  hateful. 

It  is  often  supposed  that  the  law  was  re- 
garded by  the  Old  Testament  believers  as  a 
yoke  of  bondage  which  they  submitted  to  as  a 
disagreeable  necessity,  slavishly  fearing  its  pun- 
ishment and  selfishly  looking  forward  to  its  re- 
ward. The  holy  singers  teach  us  better  things. 
They  indeed  were  deeply  conscious  of  their 
feebleness  and  dependence.  Hear  the  cry  of 
the  19th  Psalm : 

Who  can  discern  his  errors  ? 

Clear  Thou  me  from  hidden  faults. 

Keep  back  Thy  servant  also  from  presumptuous  sins ; 

Let  them  not  have  dominion  over  me. 

Then  shall  I  be  perfect. 

And  I  shall  be  clean  from  much  transgression. 

To  the  same  effect  is  the  long  alphabetical  1 19th 
Psalm,  which  a  recent  German  critic  charges 
with  monotony  and  poverty  of  thought,  but  in 
so  doing  only  shows  his  own  poverty  of  spirit- 
ual apprehension.  In  every  age  this  singular 
lyric  has  been  a  chosen  portion  of  Scripture  to 
the  spiritually-minded.  Never  wearied  by  its 
repetitions,  or  its  apparent  redundancies,  they 


1 62  ,  THE  PSALTER.  . 

have  found  in  each  verse  a  new  stimulus  to 
pious  meditation  or  fresh  nutriment  of  devout 
feeling.  The  Psalm  is  a  continued  series  of 
aphorisms  expressing  in  every  variety  of  phrase, 
on  one  hand  the  excellence  of  the  divine  law, 
and  on  the  other  the  difficulty  and  yet  the 
blessedness  of  conforming  to  it.  Hence  it  is 
full  of  devout  and  earnest  breathings  after  Je- 
hovah's grace  and  help. 

Oh  that  my  ways  were  directed  to  keep  Thy  statutes. 

My  soul  cleaveth  to  the  dust ; 

Quicken  Thou  me  according  to  Thy  word. 

Hold  Thou  me  up,  and  I  shall  be  safe. 

Order  my  footsteps  in  Thy  word, 

And  let  not  any  iniquity  have  dominion  over  me. 

The  deep  insight  of  these  holy  men  into  the 
radical  corruption  of  human  nature  made  them 
thoroughly  sensible  of  the  fact  that  good 
thoughts  and  good  works  have  their  source 
only  in  God.  Yet  while  all  this  is  true  ;  while 
they,  like  the  Apostle,  found  a  law  that  when 
they  would  do  good,  evil  was  present  with  them, 
they  also  could  and  did  say  with  the  same  Apos- 
tle, "  I  delight  in  the  law  of  God  after  the  in- 
ward man."  Indeed  we  have  an  almost  identi- 
cal utterance  in  the  40th  Psalm : 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  163 

To  do  Thy  will,  O  my  God,  I  delight, 
Yea,  Thy  law  is  within  my  heart. 

That  law  to  them  was  a  badge,  not  of  slavery, 
but  of  liberty.  It  gave  light  to  the  mind,  it 
quickened  the  soul,  it  rejoiced  the  heart.  The 
statutes  of  the  Lord  were  more  to  be  desired 
than  gold,  yea,  than  much  fine  gold,  sweeter 
also  than  honey  and  the  droppings  of  the  comb. 

Oh,  how  I  love  Thy  law  ! 

It  is  my  meditation  all  the  day. 

Seven  times  a  day  do  I  praise  Thee, 
Because  of  Thy  righteous  judgments. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  affirm  that  these  utter- 
ances express  the  feelings  of  all  the  people,  or 
even  the  habitual  state  of  those  from  whose  lips 
they  fell.  It  is  enough  if  they  are  regarded  as 
the  product  of  some  favored  hours  of  devotion, 
for  even  then  they  stand  as  the  norm  of  godly 
character,  the  standard  which  every  one  is  to  set 
before  him.  And  they  show  what  a  moral  ele- 
vation was  reached  by  obscure  singers  in  an 
obscure  country,  far,  far  away  from  the  aesthetic 
completeness  of  Greece,  yet  kindling  a  fire  of 
love  to  God  and  holy  things  at  which  every 
succeeding  generation  has  been  glad  to  light 
its  torch. 


164  THE  PSALTER. 

But  there  are  two  objections  to  the  ethical 
correctness  of  the  Psalter  which -require  notice. 
One  of  these  rests  upon  the  assertion  not  un- 
frequently  made  by  the  Psalmist  of  his  integ- 
rity. I  will  quote  one  case  as  strong-  as  any, 
that  which  is  found  in  Psalm  xviii.  20-24 : 

The  Lord  rewarded  me  according  to  my  righteouness  ; 

According  to  the  cleanness  of  my  hands  hath  He  recompensed 
me. 

For  I  have  kept  the  ways  of  the  Lord, 

And  have  not  wickedly  departed  from  my  God. 

I  was  also  upright  before  Him, 

And  kept  myself  from  my  iniquity. 

Therefore  the  Lord  recompensed  me  according  to  my  righteous- 
ness, 

According  to  the  cleanness  of  my  hands  in  His  sight. 

Such  utterances  are  charged  as  breathing  the 
very  spirit  of  self-righteousness  and  irreligious 
pride,  and  as,  therefore,  wholly  unworthy  of 
sincere  and  candid  persons,  much  more  of  the 
devout  and  God-fearing.  But  this  is  a  great 
mistake.  In  all  these  passages  the  worshipper 
is  not  laying  claim  to  a  perfect  holiness,  for  one 
and  all  agree  in  the  petition  (cxliii.  2), — 

Enter  not  into  judgment  with  Thy  servant. 
For  in  Thy  sight  no  man  living  is  righteous. 

The  consciousness  of  human  guilt  lay  too  deep 
for  that.    The  explanation  of  the  claim  to  right- 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  165 

eousness  is  not  found  (as  Hengstenberg  holds) 
in  the  fact  of  an  upright  moral  striving,  a  sin- 
cere bent  of  mind  earnestly  reaching  after  the 
fulfilment  of  the  divine  law,  in  view  of  which 
God  may  be  expected  to  pardon  many  weak- 
nesses. How  such  a  view  is  to  be  reconciled 
with  the  doctrine  of  gratuitous  justification  I  can 
not  conceive.  Far  better  is  the  ground  that 
the  Psalmist  is  speaking  of  the  case  as  it  stood 
between  him  and  his  enemies,  and  in  that  view 
meant  his  words  to  be  taken  in  their  literal 
sense.  Consider,  e.g.,  his  conflict  with  Saul. 
In  this  the  right  was  all  on  one  side.  Toward 
the  king,  David's  whole  course  was  absolutely 
faultless.  Hunted  for  his  life,  and  persecuted 
in  every  possible  way,  he  refused  to  retaliate 
even  when  it  was  in  his  power.  He  could, 
therefore,  justly  claim  as  against  such  opposers 
absolute  rectitude.  Such  a  protestation  is  quite 
consistent  with  a  deep  sense  of  sin  before  God. 
Thus  Paul  asserted  that  in  his  flesh  there  dwelt 
no  good  thing,  and  spoke  of  himself  as  the 
chief  of  sinners  ;  yet  when  occasion  required,  he 
resolutely  asserted  his  integrity,  and  made  a 
long  detail  of  his  services  and  his  sufferings  (2 
Corinthians  xi.  21-31).  And  God  is  not  dis- 
pleased with  even  a  heat  of  jealousy  in  His 


1 66  THE  PSALTER. 

people  when  insisting  upon  their  sincerity.  And 
such  declarations  are  useful  to  remind  us  of  the 
necessity  of  being  able,  in  the  quarrel  of  the 
world  with  the  Lord's  people,  evermore  to  in- 
sist that  as  to  the  things  in  which  they  assail 
us  we  are  not  assailable.  It  is  not  simply  by 
passing  feelings  and  vain  imaginations  that 
God's  children  are  separated  from  others,  but 
by  a  consistent  outward  life. 

Another  and  far  more  formidable  objection 
to  the  ethical  excellence  of  the  Psalms  is  based 
on  the  fearful  imprecations  which  some  of  them 
contain.  Among  the  most  striking  are  the  fol- 
lowing : 

Let  them  be  confounded  that  seek  after  my  soul ; 

Let  them  be  turned  back  and  brought  to  confusion  that  devise  my 

hurt, 
Let  them  be  as  chaff  before  the  wind, 
And  let  the  angel  of  the  Lord  drive  them. 
Let  their  way  be  dark  and  slippery, 
And  let  the  angel  of  the  Lord  persecute  them. — (xxxv.  4,  5,  6.) 

Pour  out  Thy  indignation  upon  them, 

And  let  Thy  wrathful  anger  take  hold  on  them. 

Add  iniquity  unto  their  iniquity, 

And  let  them  not  come  into  Thy  righteousness. — (Ixix.  24,  27.) 

Set  Thou  a  wicked  man  over  him, 
And  let  Satan  stand  at  his  right  hand. 
When  he  is  judged,  let  him  be  condemned  ; 
And  let  his  prayer  become  sin. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS,  ^     167 

Let  his  children  be  fatherless, 

And  his  wife  a  widow. — (cix.  6,  7,  9.) 

O,  daughter  of  Babylon,  who  art  to  be  destroyed  ; 

Happy  shall  he  be  that  rendereth  unto  Thee 

The  deed  which  thou  hast  done  to  us. 

Happy  shall  he  be  that  taketh 

And  dasheth  thy  little  ones  against  the  rock. — (cxxxvii.  8,  9.) 

Such  terrible  maledictions  have  often  been  a 
grief  and  perplexity  to  the  Christian,  and  an 
occasion  for  cavil  and  scoffing  to  the  sceptical. 
And  although  one  can  not  go  so  far  as  to  say 
with  Mr.  Froude,  "  Those  who  accept  the  109th 
Psalm  as  the  Word  of  God  are  far  on  their 
way  toward  auto-da-fes  and  massacres  of  St. 
Bartholomew,"  or  to  agree  with  Dean  Stanley, 
who  describes  their  spirit  as  "  savage  "  {yeivish 
Church,  II.,  170)  ;  yet  it  must  be  confessed  that 
at  first  at  least  there  seems  to  be  a  sharp  contrast 
to  the  mild  and  benignant  tones  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament. This  has  led  some  with  Bishops  Home 
and  Horsley  to  try  to  overcome  the  difficulty 
by  rendering  the  verbs  in  the  future  tense,  and 
so  converting  the  imprecations  into  predictions. 
But  I  believe  that  this  is  now  considered  by  all 
respectable  scholars  a  mere  evasion,  and  one 
that  does  violence  to  the  settled  laws  of  the 
Hebrew  language.  Besides,  it  leaves  unex- 
plained a  numerous  class  of  passages  to  which 


l68      .  ^^^  P SALTER. 

even  its  advocates  admit  that  it  does  not  apply. 
A  similar  evasion  is  that  suggested  by  Arnold 
of  Rugby,  that  the  language  of  these  Psalms 
may  be,  and  is  to  be,  applied  by  the  modern 
reader  to  the  enemies  of  his  soul's  peace. 
But  even  were  this  possible,  still  it  would  not 
explain  these  fearful  words  as  pronounced  by 
the  original  utterers.  Not  a  few,  therefore,  have 
taken  the  ground  that  the  language  is  indefensi- 
ble ;  that  it  sprang  from  the  presence  of  wicked 
passion  in  the  hearts  of  God's  ancient  servants, 
who  could  not  rise  above  the  level  of  the  dis- 
pensation in  which  they  lived ;  and  that  we 
ought  not  to  be  surprised  at  their  occasional 
lapses  into  human  infirmity.  This  view  is  re- 
garded by  Dr.  Hesse  (Bampton  Lecture,  1872) 
as  that  which  is  least  objectionable.  Even 
Tholuck  seems  to  admit  that  at  times  there 
mingled  with  the  holy  fire  of  the  Psalmists  the 
unholy  fire  of  personal  irritation.  This  is 
wholly  inadmissible.  These  Psalms  were  not 
random  individual  utterances,  for  which  the 
Bible  is  no  more  responsible  than  it  is  for  the 
speeches  in  the  Book  of  Job,  but  they  were 
from  the  first  destined  for  use  in  the  sanctuary. 
God,  therefore,  must  be  considered  as  suggest- 
ing and  approving  the  prayers  which  His  Church 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


169 


was  to  offer  in  the  perpetual  service  of  song. 
The  human  authors  doubtless  expressed  their 
own  feelings,  but  they  also  expressed  what  the 
community  of  God's  people  ought  to  feel,  and 
did  feel.  On  any  other  view  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult, if  not  impossible,  to  maintain  the  inspira- 
tion and  authority  of  the  Psalter. 

The  gist  of  the  matter  lies  in  the  question, 
Do  these  Psalms  contain  the  malignant  expres- 
sion of  ill-will  to  personal  enemies  as  such,  or 
are  they  rather  the  utterance  of  God's  punitive 
wrath  against  His  obstinate  foes  ?  Surely  it  is 
not  difficult  to  maintain  the  latter.  The  as- 
sumption that  the  Old  Testament  cherished  a 
vindictive  spirit  and  tolerated  resentment  for 
private  injuries,  is  wholly  unfounded.  In  the 
Pentateuch  itself  we  read,  "  If  thou  meet  thine 
enemy's  ox  or  his  ass  going  astray,  thou  shalt 
surely  bring  it  back  to  him"  (Exodus  xxiii.  4). 
"  Thou  shalt  not  avenge  nor  bear  any  grudge 
against  the  children  of  the  people,  but  shall 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself "  (Leviticus  xix. 
18).  So  in  Job,  "  If  I  rejoice  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  him  that  hated  me,  or  lifted  up  myself 
when  evil  found  him  ;  neither  have  I  suffered 
my  mouth  to  sin  by  wishing  a  curse  upon  his 


I/O 


THE  PSALTER. 


soul  "  (xxxi.  29,  30).  The  prescription  of  the 
law  (Exodus  xxi.  23),  "  Life  for  hfe,  eye  for 
eye,  tooth  for  tooth,  hand  for  hand,"  etc.,  has 
been  ignorantly  quoted  as  if  it  laid  down  the 
rule  for  individuals  in  redressing-  their  own 
wrongs,  whereas  it  simply  states  the  penalty 
which  the  magistrates  are  to  exact  from  a  wrong- 
doer. Indeed,  so  far  from  the  Old  Testament 
being  at  war  with  the  New  on  this  point,  we 
find  the  Apostle,  in  dissuading  his  Roman 
brethren  from  taking  matters  into  their  own 
hands,  going  back  to  the  book  of  Deuterono- 
my and  quoting  its  words  as  a  rule,  "  Dearly 
beloved,  avenge  not  yourselves,  but  rather  give 
place  unto  wrath  ;  for  it  is  written,  *  Vengeance 
is  Mine,  I  will  repay,'  saith  the  Lord."  And 
that  these  inculcations  were  not  fruitless  is 
shown  by  many  examples,  and  especially  that 
of  David.  He  was  a  man  of  intense  force  of 
will,  and  of  very  strong  passions,  yet  he  often 
exhibited  great  meekness  and  forbearance  even 
in  trying  circumstances.  His  conduct  toward 
Saul  from  first  to  last  indicated  a  spirit  anything 
but  malignant  and  revengeful ;  and  the  same  is 
true  of  his  deportment  under  Shimei's  bitter  re- 
proaches. Nor  can  his  dying  charge  to  Solomon, 
respecting  Joab  and  Shimei,  be  said,  if  all  the 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


171 


circumstances  are  considered,  to  be  a  case  of 
hate  projecting  itself  beyond  the  grave,  but 
rather  of  wisdom  securing  at  a  future  time  that 
satisfaction  of  justice  which  could  not  be  at- 
tained in  the  present.  This  statement  is  sus- 
tained by  his  own  words.  In  Psalm  7th,  4,  5, 
he  invokes  wrath  upon  his  head  if  he  has  re- 
warded evil  to  one  that  was  at  peace  with  him, 
and  affirms  on  the  contrary  that  he  had  deliv- 
ered the  man  that  was  without  cause  his  enemy. 
So  in  the  very  Psalm  which  contains  some  sore 
imprecations,  the  35th,  we  find  that  David  refers 
to  personal  foes  in  a  very  different  manner, — 

They  rewarded  me  evil  for  good, 

My  soul  was  bereaved. 

But  as  for  me,  when  they  were  sick,  my  clothing  was  sackcloth  ; 

I  afflicted  my  soul  with  fasting. 

And  my  prayer  returned  into  my  own  bosom. 

I  behaved  myself  as  if  it  had  been  my  friend,  my  brother  ; 

I  bowed  down  heavily  as  one  that  mourneth  for  a  mother. 

It  seems  to  be  evident,  then,  that  when  David 
poured  out  his  awful  maledictions,  it  was  not  from 
a  mean  and  base  desire  to  see  his  personal  ene- 
mies laid  low.  So  far  as  he,  himself,  was  con- 
cerned, he  could  afford  to  forofive  and  forofet. 
But  his  enemies  were  also  enemies  of  the  Lord, 
and  he  could  rightfully  desire  and    rejoice   in 


1/2 


THE  PSAL  TER. 


their  destruction  when  that  dread  result  was 
necessary  to  vindicate  God's  justice,  and  demon- 
strate the  reahty  and  power  of  His  government. 
Thus,  in  Psahii  58th,  the  singer,  after  denounc- 
ing unjust  and  oppressive  rulers,  and  supplicat- 
ing their  rapid  and  hopeless  overthrow,  con- 
cludes : 

The  righteous  shall  rejoice  when  he  seeth  the  vengeance, 
He  shall  wash  his  feet  in  the  blood  of  the  wicked. 
So  that  men  shall  say,  Verily  there  is  a  reward  for  the  righteous. 
Verily  there  is  a  God  that  judgeth  in  the  earth. 

It  is  God's  honor  that  is  chiefly  concerned, 
and  not  the  personal  feelings  of  any  of  His  serv- 
ants. There  is,  therefore,  no  more  individual 
resentment  in  these  utterances  than  there  is  in 
the  tremendous  imprecation  of  Paul,  which, 
though  so  simple  in  its  words,  contains  a  full 
equivalent  to  all  the  long  and  varied  wishes  for 
vengeance  contained  in  all  the  imprecatory 
Psalms  put  together.  "  If  any  man  love  not 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  let  him  be  Anathema, 
Maranatha."  Surely  in  this  fearful  expression 
the  Apostle  was  gratifying  no  private  grudge, 
but  only  exhibiting  his  intense  and  perfect  sym- 
pathy with  the  merit  and  the  claims  of  our  ador- 
able Redeemer. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  173 

But  admitting  this,  why  were  these  awful 
curses  put  into  the  Liturgy  of  the  Church, 
and  so  stereotyped  for  all  coming  generations  ? 
For  eood  reason.  It  is  true  the  rule  of  our 
conduct  is  to  bless  and  curse  not,  to  pray  for 
them  that  despitefully  use  us  ;  and  no  part  of 
our  Lord's  example  is  more  binding  upon  us 
than  His  rebuke  to  James  and  John  for  wishing 
to  call  down  fire  from  heaven  upon  the  churlish 
Samaritans,  and  His  own  prayer  for  His  mur- 
derers upon  the  cross.  But  there  is  danger 
lest  this  meekness  and  forbearance  should  be 
misapplied  so  as  to  check  or  lessen  that  living 
conviction  of  the  evil  of  sin,  and  of  the  cer- 
tainty of  God's  retributive  righteousness,  which 
is  essential  to  true  Christian  character.  The 
Apostle  tells  us  that  the  civil  magistrate  is  "  a 
revenger  to  execute  wrath  upon  him  that  doeth 
evil " — not  simply  to  preserve  order  and  to  de- 
ter by  example  others  from  wrong-doing,  but 
in  the  name  of  God,  whose  representative  and 
minister  he  is,  to  redress  the  wrongs  of  out- 
raged justice.  This  is  seen  whenever  some 
foul  crime  has  been  committed.  Meek  and 
gentle  souls  who  scarcely  know  what  malice  is 
by  experience,  and  who  would  be  quite  ready  to 
feed  and  clothe  a  personal  enemy,  will  feel  a 


174  THE  PSALTER. 

righteous  indignation,  and  long  and  pray  that 
the  criminal  may  be  detected  and  receive  the 
just  reward  of  his  crimes.  Now  it  is  just  the 
same  sympathy,  not  with  human  government, 
but  the  divine,  that  is  expressed  in  the  impre- 
catory Psalms.  The  kingdom  of  God  comes 
not  only  by  showing  mercy  to  the  penitent,  but 
by  executing  judgment  upon  the  impenitent. 
Was  it  not  so  at  the  deluge,  at  the  deliverance 
from  Egypt,  at  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  ? 
We  need  to  have  the  consuming  zeal  for  God 
which  animated  the  old  Hebrew  singers,  and 
then  their  solemn  utterances  will  take  their  right- 
ful place  as  just  and  true.  They  will  seem  as 
natural  and  proper  as  the  opening  words  of 
Milton's  fine  sonnet  on  the  Vaudois, — 

Avenge,  O  Lord  !  thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 
Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold. 

The  truth  is,  these  Psalms  denounce  no  more 
against  the  wicked  than  what  God  actually 
brings  upon  them.  They  simply  utter  the  bur- 
den of  the  Lord  concerning  His  obdurate  foes. 
Is  it  impossible  that  a  godly  mind  may  become 
so  much  at  one  with  the  divine  mind  in  these 
respects,  as  justly  to  pray  that  the  Divine  Being 
would  do  what  it  would  be  certainly  righteous 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  175 

in  Him  to  do,  and  what  in  His  time  He  assuredly 
will  do  ?     In  fact,  the  argument  against  these 
imprecations  is  really  an  argument  against  all 
retributions,    and    therefore  against  the  moral 
government  of  God,  against  that   throne   with 
whose  stability  the  welfare   of  the  universe  is 
identified.     Forbearance  toward  the  desperately 
wicked  is  injustice  and  cruelty  to  the  unoffend- 
ing, and  the  feeling  which  demands  justice,  in- 
stead of  being  malignant,  is  really  benevolent. 
As  long  as  men  are   at  ease,  reposing  amid 
the  comforts  of  an  established  Christian  society, 
and  breathing  an   atmosphere  of  contentment, 
peace,  and  moral  order,  they  fail  to  hear  or  un- 
derstand the  outcry  of  God's  suffering  children, 
and  have  little  sympathy  with  a  righteous  indig- 
nation at  wrong-doing.    But  let  storm  and  tem- 
pest come,   let  diabolical  iniquity  be  wrought, 
let  not  only  law  and  justice,  but  humanity  and 
nature  be  trodden  under  foot,  and  at  once  there 
is  a  startling  recoil  of  the  soul.     Even  the  meek 
and  patient  fall  back  upon  these  inspired  utter- 
ances, and  cry  out  with  fervor : 

O  Lord  God  !  to  whom  vengeance  belongeth  ; 

O  God,  to  whom  vengeance  belongeth,  show  Thyself. 

Lift  up  Thyself,  Thou  Judge  of  the  earth. 

Render  a  reward  to  the  proud. 


lyS  THE  PSALTER. 

Lord,  how  long  shall  the  wicked, 

How  long  shall  the  \vicked  triumph  ? — (xciv.  1-3). 

An  irrepressible  instinct  of  liuman  nature 
planted  by  the  author  of  that  nature  unites  with 
the  sentiments  nourished  by  the  revelation  of 
God's  essential  and  unalterable  righteousness  in 
His  word  to  make  men  long  and  pray  that  the 
doers  of  evil  may  be  rooted  out  of  the  earth. 

A  signal  illustration  of  this  truth  is  found  in 
what  took  place  at  the  time  of  the  East  Indian 
mutiny  in  1857,  when  the  news  of  the  fearful 
atrocities  perpetrated  not  only  upon  men  in 
arms,  but  upon  women  and  children,  reached 
Europe  and  America.  The  first  feeling  was  one 
of  unspeakable  horror ;  then  went  up  from  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  a  terrible  cry  for  revenge. 
Persons  who  had  no  tie  of  blood  or  affection  or 
interest  with  the  sufferers,  felt  the  emotion  just 
as  much  as  the  nearest  relatives.  A  prominent 
American  author.  Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes,  wrote 
the  suggestion  that  England  should  take  down 
the  map  of  India,  and  correct  it  thus:  Delhi, 
deie,  and  declared  that  the  civilized  world  would 
say,  Amen.  Lord  Macaulay  {Life,  II.,  367-9) 
said,  "  It  is  painful  to  be  so  revengeful  as  I  feel 
myself  I,  who  can  not  bear  to  see  a  beast  or  a 
bird    in    pain,  could  look  on    without   winking 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


\77 


while  Nana  Sahib  underwent  all  the  tortures  of 
Ravaillac."  Again,  "Till  this  year  I  did  not 
know  what  real  vindictive  hatred  meant.  With 
what  horror  I  used  to  read  in  Livy  how  Fulvius 
put  to  death  the  whole  Capuan  Senate  in  the 
Second  Punic  War  !  And  with  what  equanimity 
I  could  hear  that  the  whole  garrison  of  Delhi 
and  all  the  rabble  of  the  bazaar  had  been  treat- 
ed in  the  same  way!  Is  this  wrong?  Is  not 
the  severity  which  springs  from  a  great  sensi- 
bility to  human  suffering,  a  better  thing  than 
the  lenity  which  springs  from  indifference  to 
human  suffering  ?  "  Still  more  marked  was  the 
utterance  of  the  great  man  who  stands  at  the 
head  of  living  missionaries  of  the  cross.  Dr. 
Alexander  Duff,  of  Scotland.  He  said,  "  I 
could  never  fully  understand  how  the  so-called 
imprecatory  Psalms  could  be  consistent  with  the 
teachings  of  the  New  Testament,  until  the  Se- 
poy rebellion  broke  out  with  such  terrific  fury, 
and  foes  sprung  up  filling  the  land  with  violence, 
shaking  the  foundations  of  society  and  of  gov- 
ernment ;  threatening  towns  and  cities  with  pil- 
lage, fire,  and  sword  ;  murdering  the  innocent 
and  defenceless  ;  persecuting  unoffending  Chris- 
tians with  especial  malignity;  making  unresist- 


178  THE  PSALTER. 

inof  missionaries  a  sacrifice  to  brutal  lust  and 
deadly  torture,  and  thus  rolling  back  the  tide 
of  Christian  civilization,  that  iniquity  might  come 
in  again  like  a  flood,  and  heathenism  with  all  its 
horrors  and  idolatry  once  more  set  up  its  seats 
in  the  land —  not  until  then  could  it  be  properly 
realized — felt — that  there  are  times  in  the  out- 
breaking of  human  passion  and  human  enmity 
when  the  pleadings  of  mercy  are  vain,  and  jus- 
tice, naked,  pitiless  justice,  must  draw  the  sword 
in  a  war  of  righteous  self-defence." 

On  this  view  of  the  case,  the  Psalms  in  ques- 
tion are  not  to  be  apologized  for,  nor  explained 
away,  nor  renounced,  but  to  be  justified  and 
commended  as  an  integral  part  of  the  word  of 
God,  as  fulfilling  an  important  and  necessary 
function,  as  suc^orestinof  in  a  most  strikino-  and 
appropriate  way  that  sympathy  with  God's  gov- 
ernment, and  that  jealousy  for  God's  honor  which 
are  the  strongest  moral  powers  of  the  soul. 
They  teach  us  the  fundamental  difference  be- 
tween the  popular  notion  of  goodness  as  identi- 
cal with  careless,  good-natured  indulgence,  and 
the  Scriptural  doctrine  of  holiness.  God,  we 
are  told,  hates  sin,  and  He  directs  us  to  abhor 
that  which  is  evil ;  which  indeed  seems  a  logical 
necessity.      For   a   good    man  must   love   that 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


179 


which  is  good ;  and  how  can  he  love  the  good 
without  hating  its  opposite  ?  Hence  the  two 
are  united  in  one  of  the  prophetic  statements 
of  the  moral  ground  of  our  Lord's  exaltation : 
"Thou  hast  loved  righteousness  and  hated  in- 
iquity." The  truest  test  of  religious  character 
is  found  in  the  degree  of  our  sympathy  with 
God  in  His  aversion  as  well  as  in  His  compla- 
cency. Indeed,  a  deep  sense  of  moral  evil  is 
essential  to  a  true  or  saving-  knowledge  of 
God.  Hence  the  value  of  those  portions  of 
holy  writ  which  stimulate  and  intensify  this  con- 
viction. The  intelligent  reader  of  these  Psalms 
will  never  fall  a  prey  to  the  dreamy  sentimental- 
ism  which  enfeebles  so  much  of  the  piety  of  our 
times,  or  to  the  rationalistic  subtleties  which 
convert  sin  into  a  misfortune,  or'an  accident,  or 
a  means  of  good.  He  will  never  exalt  mercy  at 
the  expense  of  righteousness,  and  so  turn  it  into 
feebleness  and  incapacity.  On  the  contrary, 
with  a  healthy  moral  sense,  and  in  the  spirit  of 
power,  of  love,  and  of  a  sound  mind,  he  will  be 
able  to  adopt  the  words  which  close  the  139th 
Psalm,  the  crown  of  the  collection,  the  noble 
lyric  which  has  attracted  the  praise  of  all  lands 
and  all  scholars  : 


I  So  THE  PSALTER. 

Do  not  I  hate  them,  O  Lord,  that  hate  Thee  ? 
•  And  am  not  I  g^rieved  with  those  that  rise  up  against  Thee  ? 
I  hate  them  with  perfect  hatred. 
I  count  them  mine  enemies. 
Search  me,  O  God,  and  know  my  heart ; 
Try  me  and  know  my  thoughts  ; 
And  see  if  there  be  any  wicked  way  in  me, 
And  lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting. 

To  conclude :  I  have  now  gone  over  the  lead- 
ing points  of  the  argument,  and  stated  the 
teaching  of  the  Psalms  upon  the  nature  of  God 
and  of  man — the  two  great  factors  in  any  scheme 
of  religious  thought ;  upon  the  contrasted  topics 
of  the  Messiah  and  of  immortality — one  remark- 
able for  the  fulness  of  its  treatment,  the  other 
for  its  scantiness  and  obscurity ;  and  finally, 
upon  the  essential  features  of  ethics  and  wor- 
ship. In  all  these  respects  it  has  been  shown 
that  there  is  in  the  Psalter  a  purity,  a  correct- 
ness, and  a  spiritual  elevation  which  stamp  it  as 
wholly  unique  among  all  the  literature  of  its 
own  or  any  preceding  age.  And  this  fact,  taken 
in  connection  with  the  character  of  the  book,  as 
not  only  poetical,  but  lyrical,  and  with  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  region,  people^  and  period  in 
which  the  collection  originated,  compel  the  be- 
lief that  the  sweet  singers  of  Israel  sang  not 
only   under   poetic,   but  divine  inspiration,   and 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  i8l 

that  their  work  is  part  of  an  authentic  and  bind- 
ing: revelation  from  the  Hvincr  God.  This  con- 
elusion  is  greatly  strengthened  by  the  subse- 
quent history  of  the  Psalter.  For  twenty-five 
centuries  its  varied  contents  have  maintained  a 
continuous  historic  life,  unbroken  by  neglect  or 
oblivion — and  that,  too,  among  the  most  widely 
differing  races  and  countries.  They  never  could 
be  buried  under  the  rubbish  of  an  obsolete 
literature  like  the  Vedas  and  the  Avestan,  nor 
hid  away  in  the  impenetrable  darkness  of  an 
unknown  language  like  the  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions. Their  very  nature  gave  them  an  inex- 
haustible vitality.  The  ecclesiastical  common- 
wealth, in  which  they  were  produced,  passed 
through  as  many  dangers  and  disasters  from 
without  and  from  within  as  any  of  its  contem- 
poraries, and  at  last  went  down  in  a  tremendous 
catastrophe.  But  the  Psalms  survived,  and 
ever  since  have  been  flourishine  in  immortal 
youth.  The  reason  is,  that  they  are  true.  Quite 
beyond  their  excellence  as  poetry,  their  beauty 
or  finish,  or  pathos,  or  lyric  fire,  they  are  the 
living,  breathing  record  of  an  experience  which 
enters  into  that  which  is  most  characteristic, 
permanent,  and  universal  in  Man,  his  moral  in- 
stincts and  his  spiritual  relations  to  his  Maker. 


1 82  THE  PSALTER. 

"The  deeps  of  our  humanity  remain  unruffled 
by  the  storms  of  ages  which  change  the  sur- 
face," It  is  these  deeps  to  which  the  Psalms 
relate.  Local  and  national  as  they  are,  they  do 
not  treat  life  after  the  fashion  of  any  one  age 
or  race,  but  life  in  its  essential  and  unchangeable 
elements,  and  that  so  thoroughly  that  every 
possible  state  of  feeHng  is  represented,  and 
every  condition  of  humanity  provided  for.  As 
Hooker  says,  "  Let  there  be  any  grief  or  dis- 
ease incident  to  the  soul  of  man,  any  wound  or 
sickness,  named,  for  which  there  is  not  in  this 
treasure-house  a  present  comfortable  remedy  at 
all  times  to  be  found."  Each  of  these  divine 
lyrics  is  beyond  question  the  true  expression  of 
an  individual  human  heart  pouring  itself  out 
before  God,  according  to  its  situation  at  the  time ; 
but  all  observation  shows  that  the  writers  ex- 
pressed the  joys  and  sorrows,  the  struggles  and 
the  victories,  the  fears  and  the  aspirations,  not 
of  one  man,  but  of  all.  Hence  the  unanimity 
with  which  they  have  been  accepted  in  every 
age  as  the  inspired  directory  for  worship,  both 
public  and  private — not  simply  recognized  in 
form  as  such,  but  actually  used  for  every  con- 
ceivable utterance  of  prayer  and  praise.  The 
language  of  Dean  Church  is  not  more  express- 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  183 

ive  than  it  is  true,  when,  comparing  the  remains 
of  early  heathen  reHgions  with  the  Psahns,  he 
says,  "  They  are  hke  the  appearance  of  the 
ilhiminated,  but  dead  surface  of  the  moon,  with 
its  burnt-out  and  extinct  volcanoes,  contrasted 
with  the  abounding  light  and  splendor  of  the 
unexhausted  sun,  still,  age  after  age,  the  source 
of  life  and  warmth,  and  joy  to  the  world,  still 
waking  up  new  energies  and  developing  new 
wonders."  How  many  in  the  long  track  of  the 
ages  have  had  their  devotion  kindled,  their  hearts 
comforted,  their  affections  moulded  by  this 
blessed  book  !  To  the  Jews,  alike  at  the  vic- 
tories under  such  kings  as  Jehoshaphat  and 
Hezekiah,  or  in  the  bitterness  of  exile,  or  in  the 
nascent  hopes  of  the  Restoration,  the  Psalter 
was  the  recognized  vehicle  of  thanks  or  suppli- 
cation. The  Maccabees,  in  their  little-known 
but  most  wondrous  struggle,  drew  their  inspira- 
tion from  the  same  source.  A  Psalm  brightened 
the  gloom  at  the  last  supper  of  our  Lord.  And 
He  himself  when  on  the  cross  expressed  His 
fearful  isolation  in  the  words  of  one  Psalm,  and 
in  those  of  another  gave  up  his  spirit  unto  God. 
When  Paul  and  Silas  lay  in  the  prison  at  Phil- 
ippi,  with  feet  fast  in  the  stocks,  they  astonished 
the    other  prisoners  with    the  songs    of  Zion. 


1 84 


THE  PSALTER. 


These  examples  were  followed  by  the  early- 
Church.  "  Go  where  you  will,"  says  Jerome, 
"  the  ploughman  at  his  plough  sings  his  joyful 
Hallelujahs,  the  busy  mower  regales  himself 
with  his  Psalms,  and  the  vine-dresser  is  singing 
one  of  the  songs  of  David.  These  are  the 
solace  of  the  shepherd  in  his  solitude  and  of  the 
husbandman  in  his  toil."  According  to  Euse- 
bius,  the  martyrs  in  the  Thebaid  employed  their 
latest  breath  in  uttering  these  divine  compo- 
sitions, just  as  was  done  centuries  afterward  by 
John  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague,  when  burning 
at  the  stake.*  So  the  army  of  Gustavus  Adol- 
phus,  and  the  Protestants  at  Courtras,  and  the 
Ironsides  of  Cromwell,  and  the  Covenanters  of 


*-In  1663,  the  town  of  Kingston,  N.  Y.,  was  attacked  by  the 
Indians,  who  buined  all  the  houses  and  carried  off  a  number  of 
prisoners.  These  were  taken  far  into  the  wilderness  near  the 
Shawangnnk  river,  where  preparations  were  made  to  torture 
them  to  death.  The  women  of  the  party,  to  support  their 
drooping  spirits,  began  to  sing  the  songs  of  Zion.  The  music 
attracted  the  attention  of  their  captors  and  delayed  their  pro- 
ceedings, discovering  which,  the  singers  raised  Dathenus's  ver- 
sion of  the  137th  Psalm,  and  poured  out  its  melancholy  strains 
in  sight  of  the  spot  where  the  faggots  were  piled  for  their  torture. 
Just  then  deliverance  came,  the  Indians  fled,  and  the  songs  of 
mourning  were  changed  to  songs  of  joy — the  137th  into  the  126th, 
and  the  wood  intended  to  consume  living  bodies  was  burned  to 
take  away  the  chills  of  night. — Edmund  Eliini:^c  in  Collections  of 
Ulster  County  Historical  Society.     (Kingston,  i860). 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  185 

Scotland,  entered  into  conflict  chanting  Psalms, 
Avith  voices  which  rose  far  above  the  din  of 
battle. 

And  still  in  our  own  day,  these  old  Hebrew 
lyrics  continue  to  fulfil  their  high  office  as  a 
manual  of  public  and  private  devotion,  a  stim- 
ulus and  a  comfort  amid  all  the  varied  ex- 
periences of  human  life.  As  good  Bishop  Home 
says  in  a  passage  of  exquisite  beauty  :  "  They 
suit  mankind  in  all  situations  ;  grateful  as  the 
manna  which  descended  from  above  and  con- 
formed itself  to  every  human  palate.  The 
fairest  productions  of  human  wit,  after  a  few 
perusals,  like  gathered  flowers,  wither  in  our 
hands  and  lose  their  fragrancy ;  but  these  un- 
fading plants  of  paradise  become,  as  we  are  ac- 
customed to  them,  still  more  and  more  beauti- 
ful ;  their  bloom  appears  to  be  daily  heighten- 
ed ;  fresh  odors  are  emitted,  and  new  sweets  ex- 
tracted from  them.  He  who  hath  once  tasted 
their  excellencies,  will  desire  to  taste  them  yet 
again ;  and  he  w^ho  tastes  them  oftenest  will 
relish  them  best."  In  singular  agreement  with 
these  statements  of  the  devout  English  prelate 
are  the  utterances  of  the  great  German  critic, 
Herder:  "Not  merely  as  regards  the  contents, 
but  also  as  regards  the  form,  has  this  use  of  the 


1 86  .     THE  PSALTER. 

Psalter  been  a  benefit  to  the  spirit  and  heart  of 
men.  As  in  no  lyric  poet  of  Greece  or  Rome, 
do  we  find  so  much  teaching,  consolation,  and 
instruction  together,  so  has  there  scarcely  been 
anywhere  so  rich  a  variation  of  tone  in  every 
kind  of  song  as  here.  For  two  thousand  years 
have  these  old  Psalms  been  again  and  again 
translated  and  imitated  in  a  variety  of  ways,  and 
still  so  rich,  so  comprehensive  is  their  man- 
ner that  they  are  capable  of  many  a  new  appli- 
cation. They  are  flowers  which  vary  according 
to  each  season  and  each  soil,  and  ever  abide  in 
the  freshness  of  youth.  Precisely  because  this 
book  contains  the  simplest  lyric  tones  for  the 
expression  of  the  most  manifold  feelings,  is  it  a 
hymn-book  for  all  times."  The  words  of  both 
these  eminent  men  are  as  true  now  as  when 
first  printed  more  than  a  century  ago.  The 
Psalms  to-day  are  read  by  a  million  times  more 
persons  than  any  other  poems  in  the  world,  and 
yet  their  flavor  is  not  exhausted.  Greeks  and 
Orientals,  Romanists  and  Protestants,  Prelatists 
and  Puritans,  Lutherans  and  Reformed,  men  of 
all  shades  of  doctrine  and  polity,  and  of  all  de- 
grees of  culture  and  progress  ;  the  profound 
theologian  and  the  humble  believer,  the  ripe 
Christian   and  the  young  convert,  the  man   of 


^^:. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  7 HE  PSALMS.  187 

elegant  taste  and  the  freedman  who  can  just 
spell  out  the  words,  alike  refresh  themselves  at 
these  living  springs.  The  mightiest  productions 
of  human  genius,  the  Iliad,  the  Divina  Com- 
media,  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare,  are  to  not  a 
few  sealed  books,  but  there  never  yet  was  in 
any  age,  a  single  devout  soul  which  did  not  find 
in  these  old  Psalms  the  very  best  expression  of 
its  own  best  experiences.  Even  Mr.  Francis 
Newman,  after  abandoning  the  Gospel  for  the 
Absolute  Religion,  has  to  go  back  to  David's 
lyre  to  find  fitting  words  to  express  the  inward 
yearning  of  the  human  heart  toward  God. 
Having  quoted  Psalm  xlii.  i, — 

As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water-brooks. 
So  panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  O  God  ! 
My  soul  is  athirst  for  God, 
Yea,  even  for  the  living  God, — 

he  adds :  "  Then  the  soul  understands  and 
knows  that  God  is  her  God,  dwelling  with  her 
more  closely  than  any  creature  can ;  yea, 
neither  stars  nor  sea,  nor  smiling  nature  hold 
God  so  intimately  as  the  bosom  of  the  soul. 
All  nature  is  ransacked  by  the  Psalmists  for 
metaphors  to  express  this  single  thought,  God 
is  for  my  soul,  and  my  soul  is  for  God.     Father, 


I  88  THE  PSALTER. 

Brother,  Friend,  King,  Master,  Shepherd,  Guide, 
are  common  titles.  God  is  their  Tower,  their 
Glory,  their  Rock,  their  Shield,  their  Sun,  their 
Star,  their  Joy,  their  Portion,  their  Trust,  their 
Life." 

Surely  a  book  thus  profound  and  tender,  thus 
suited  to  all  lands  and  ages,  thus  attested  by 
scores  of  generations,  dear  to  lowly  Christians, 
and  yet  compelling  the  suffrage  of  unbelievers, 
always  tried  and  yet  never  found  wanting,  as 
eagerly  and  usefully  read  to-day  in  Oregon  or 
Oceanica  as  it  was  in  the  hill  country  of  Judah 
before  the  Trojan  war  ;  such  a  book  must  have 
a  higher  than  human  origin. 


PASSAGES    OF    SCRIPTURE   QUOTED 

OR 

REFERRED    TO. 


Exodus,  xxi.  23 

.     170 

Psalm 

"        xxiii.  4      .     . 

.     169 

" 

Leviticus,  xix.  18    .     . 

.     169 

" 

Deuteronomy,  vi.  4 

.       40 

" 

"             xviii.  I 

.      134 

" 

xxxii.  3 

5  •     170 

" 

Joshua,  x.  13      .     .     . 

.      86 

" 

2  Samuel,  i.  18  .     .     . 

86,  88 

" 

2  Kings,  xix.  15      .     . 

.       40 

" 

Job,  xxv.  5     .     .     .     . 

•       52 

" 

"     xxxi.  29,  30 

.     170 

" 

Psalm  i 

•     153 

" 

"       ii 

39.  117 

" 

"       iv.  6    .     .     . 

•       94 

" 

vi.  .     .     .       15 

,  16,  136 

'• 

"      vii.  4,  5    .     . 

.     171 

" 

"       viii.     .     .     . 

75 

" 

^'       xiii.     .     .     . 

.       16 

" 

"       xiv.     .     .     . 

.      78 

" 

"        XV,        .      .      . 

.     155 

" 

^'       xvi.      .     .     . 

.  94.  134 

" 

xvii.    .     .     . 

•     135 

" 

"       xviii.   .     .     . 

.  30,  164 

" 

"       xix.  12,  13    . 

.     161 

" 

"       xxii.    .     .     . 

•       54 

'< 

^'       xxix.  .     .     . 

•      44 

"       xxx.  9      .     . 

.     .     136 

„ 

"       xxxi.    .     .     . 

.     .       16 

" 

xxxii.  .     . 

•       15 

xxxiii.  6  . 

•      47 

"       9  • 

41 

XXXV.  4-6 

.     166 

12-14 

171 

xxxvi.      .     . 

15 

xl.  8    .     . 

163 

xliv.    .     . 

14 

xlv.      .     .     . 

119 

xlvii.  .     .     . 

99 

xlix.    .     .     . 

135 

1.    .     .     . 

5^ 

.55.  158 

li.  5     .     . 

15.79 

liii.  1-3    .     . 

.      78 

Iviii.  3      .     . 

79 

"      10,  1 1 

172 

Ix.  .     .     . 

14 

Ixvii.   .     . 

103 

Ixviii.  .     . 

100 

Ixix.  24-27 

166 

Ixxi.  22    . 

51 

Ixxii.  .     . 

120 

Ixxiii.  24 

136 

25,  26 

96 

Ixxiv. 

14 

Ixxvi.  2    . 

97 

Ixxix. 

14 

Ixxxvii.    . 

101 

(189) 

190 


PASSAGES  OF  SCRIP  TURE. 


Psalm  Ixxxviii.  10, 
"       Ixxxix. 

xc. 
"  xciii.  . 
"  xciv  . 
„  xcv.  . 
"  xcvii.  . 
"  c.  3  . 
"       "  5     . 

"       "  1-3 
"       cii. 

"    25-27 
"       ciii.  7  .     . 

"    8,  9,  II 
"         "     10-17 
"       civ. 
"       cv. 
"       cix. 
"      ex. 
"       cxi.  9  . 
"       cxv.  I 

"         "     3 
"       cxix. 
"       cxxvi  . 


•  136 

•  47 
14,48 

.     120 

•  175 
.     102 

•  54 

•  54 
.  75 
.  102 

15.  103 

.      46 

•  97 
.       92 

•  55 
28-30 


.     167 
39,  122 

•  52 
.      86 

•  47 
161-163 


Psalm  cxxx.  .     , 

"      2    < 

"       cxxxv.  6 

"       cxxxvi.    , 

"       cxxxvii.    , 


"         8,9 
cxxxix.  1-4 
6      . 
7-10 
17,18 
"        21-24 
cxliii. 


"       cxlvii.  19,  20 
Isaiah,  viii.  19    . 
"       xlv.  6      . 
"       Ix.  I    .     . 
Matthew,  vii.  20 
Acts,  xvii.  28     . 
Romans,  iii.  10 
"         vii.  22 
"         xii.  19 
2  Corinthians,  xi.  21-31 


15,  80 
180 

42 

55 

184 

167 

50 

51 

49 

93 

179 

15 
80,  164 

97 

134 

40 

21 

149 

74 

78 

162 

170 

165 


INDEX. 


Apologetics,  4,  1 50. 
Aratus,  quotation  from,  74. 
Arnold  of  Rugby  on  the  Imprecations,  168. 
Asaph,  his  noble  Ps.,  95,  135. 
Asceticism  absent  from  the  Psalter,  156. 

Athenians,  their  claim  to  be  autochthons,  74  ;  Moral  earnest- 
ness, 84. 
Augustine's  famous  saying,  94. 
Avatara,  the  Hindu,  128. 
Avestan,  3,  62,  87,  92,  128,  181. 

Bacon,  calls  some  Pss.  "  hearse-like,"  16. 
Books  of  the  Pss.,  The  Five,  13,  14. 
Bryant's  Thanatopsis,  ignores  God,  44. 

Callimachus,  his  hymns,  58. 

Calvin,  on  Maccabean  Pss.,  14  ;  on  the  139th,  49. 

Church,  Dean,  on  ancient  hymns,  83,  182. 

Cleanthes,  Hymn  of,  68,  74. 

Clement  of  Alexandria  on  Egj^ptian  Idolatry,  132. 

Coleridge  on  Love,  10;  on  Immortality,  141. 

David,  retrospect  of  life,  30-32  ;  Confession  of  Sin,  79  ;  Conflict 

with  Saul,  165  ;  not  vindictive,  170. 
Delitzsch  on  the  29th  Ps.,  44. 
Deutch,  E.,  on  the  Talmud,  62. 
Didactic  Pss.,  17,  153,  161. 

(191) 


192 


INDEX. 


East  India  Mutiny,  176. 

Eg^-pt,  not  the  source  of  Hebrew  Poetry,  24  ;  its  idolatrj^  106  ; 

Doctrine  of  Immortality,  133,  139,  137. 
Eltinge,  Edmund,  quoted,  184. 
Eternity  of  God,  47. 
Ethics  of  the  Psalter,  not  overstrained,  156  ;  pure,  157  ;  spiritual, 

160 ;  joyful,  161. 
Eusebius  on  the  Martyrs  of  the  Thebaid,  184. 
Ewald,  on  Maccabean  Pss.  15  ;  on  Hebrew  drama,  21  ;    on  lyric 

poetry,  22  ;  on  the  53d  Ps.,  78 ;  on  the  73d,  96. 

Fijians,  their  view  of  Immortality,  132. 

Forgiveness  of  injuries  taught  in  the  Old  Testament,  169. 

Froude  on  Ps.  cix.,  167. 

Gibbon,  on  pure  morals  of  the  early  Church,  150. 

Goethe  referred  to,  26. 

Golden  Age,  put  in  the  past  by  heathen,  98  ;  in  the  future  by  the 

Psalmists,  99,  105. 
Greek  Tragedy,  its  Nemesis,  84. 

Happy  Man,  The,  153. 

Herder,  on  the  Old  Testament,  8  ;  on  the  Pss.,  185. 

Hesiod,  his  Theogony,  58. 

Hesse,  Dr.  H.,  on  the  Imprecations,  168. 

Hindus's  Confession  of  Sin,  81-83. 

Holmes,  Dr.  O.  W.,  quoted,  176. 

Holiness  of  God,  51,  83. 

Homeric  Hymns,  57,  152, 

Home,  Bp.,  on  the  Imprecations,  167  ;  on  the  Pss.,    185. 

Horsley.  Bp.,  on  the  Imprecations,  167. 

Human  heroes,  not  found  in  the  Psalter,  88,  115. 

Humboldt  on  the  104th  Ps.,  29. 

Ideal  Messiah  denied,  91. 
Immensity  of  God  asserted,  49. 


INDEX. 


193 


Immortality  of  the  Soul,  not  per  se  important,  131  ;  known  to 
the  Jews,  133  ;  not  emphasized,  137  ;  a  universal  tradition  or 
belief,  141. 

Imprecations  in  the  Pss.,  166. 

Jasher,  Book  of,  its  nature,  86-88, 
Jebb,  Bp.,  quoted,  20. 
Jerome,  on  use  of  the  Pss.,  184. 
Justice  of  God  asserted,  53. 

Lewis,  Prof.  Tayler,  on  the  Bible  as  best  defence  against  error,  6. 
Livingstone  on  Central  African  beliefs,  133. 
Lowth  on  Parallelism,  19. 
Lyrics,  Nature  of,  9,  10,  152. 

Macaulay,    Lord,    his   search    for    ballads,    23  ;    on    the    India 

Mutiny,  176,  177. 
Man,  not  the  subject  of  lyric  praise,  28,  86,  115, 
Messiah,  triumphant,  117  ;  suffering,   123;  not  found  elsewhere 

in  equal  purity,  128. 
Milton,  quotation  from  Liberty  of  Unlicensed  Printing,  6 ;  from 

his  Sonnet  on  the  Vaudois,  174. 
Moliere,  58. 
Monotheism,  characteristic  of  the  Pss.,  66 ;    not  a  question  ot 

race,  65. 
Morals    of    the    Psalter,    pure,    152;    rooted   in   religion,    154, 

gracious,  156. 
Moses,  author  of  the  90th  Ps.,  13,  14. 
Muller,  Max,  on  Vedic  Hymns,  60  ;  on  Immortality,  131. 

Necromancers,  among  the  Jews,  134  ;  modern,  142. 
Nemesis  of  Greek  Tragedy,  84. 
Newman,  Dr.  J.  H.,  referred  to,  34. 
Newman,  Prof.  Francis,  quoted,  187. 


194 


INDEX. 


Old   Testament,   foundation  of  the   New,  8,   151  ;    not  vindic- 
tive, 169. 
Omnipresence  of  God,  49. 
Omniscience  of  God,  50. 
Orig-in  of  Man,  74. 
Ovid,  81. 

Palestine,  its  physical  peculiarities,  25. 

Pantheism  known  to  the  Psalter,  40. 

Parallelisms  in  Hebrew  Poetry,  19. 

Pascal  on  man's  dignity,  T"] . 

Pessimism,  not  found  in  the  Psalter,  91, 

Penitential  Pss.,  15. 

Poetry  of  the  Psalter,   real,    17-21  ;  lyrical,  21-23  ;  Palestinian, 

24-26  ;  true,  27. 
Pindar,  contrast  with  the  Psalter,  86. 

Renan  on  Monotheism,  65. 

Robertson  of  Brighton,  his  vindication  of  Wordsworth,  43. 

Self-righteousness  not  justly  chargeable  to  the  Psalter,  164. 

Soul,  its  yearning  for  God,  94,  187. 

Sosiosh,  the  Persian,  128. 

Spirituality  of  the  Psalter,  11. 

Spontaneity  of  the  Pss.,  9. 

Stanley,  Dean,  on  the  Imprecations,  167. 

Talmud,  62. 

Taylor,  Isaac,  on  Palestine,  25  ;  on  mythical  heroes,  90. 

Tennyson   quoted,   Charge,  etc.,    89 ;    Locksley    Hall,    104  ;    In 

Memoriam,  105,  104. 
Theology  of  the  Psalter,  39,  etc. 
Tholuck  on  the  Imprecations,  168. 
Truth  of  all  poetry,  27  ;  of  the  Pss.,  28-32. 


INDEX.  IQ5 

Unity  of  God,  39,  66-68. 

Varuna's  greatness,  61,  62. 

Vedas,  Age  of,   59;  Character,  60;  fine  sayings  of,  61  ;  confes- 
sion of  sin,  81  ;  vagueness,  92  ;  earthly,  94. 

Whewell  on  the  8th  Ps.,  75. 

Wordsworth,  his  pantheistic  tendencies,  43. 

Zendic  HjTnns,  elevated,  62  ;  Dualistic,  63  ;    their  Sosiosh  post 
Biblical,  129. 


DATE  DUE 


HIGHSMITH  W45230 


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